Ms M Dearing v Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust HELD: by CVP — 2020

Ms M Dearing was employed by Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust as a Community Psychiatric Nurse. The tribunal found that her role required accurate and timely clinical record-keeping under the NMC Code and the Trust's defensible documentation policy, including completion of patient records on Lorenzo. It found that record-keeping concerns had been raised with her over time, first in the Goole team and then after she moved to the Holderness team.

The claimant was suspended on 16 January 2019 and later disciplined for alleged repeated failures to complete clinical documentation, together with failures to complete work allocated for 25 May 2018 and the following week. The tribunal accepted that the investigation by Ms Jordan was comprehensive and fair: relevant witnesses were interviewed, relevant documents were gathered, and the claimant was given the material in advance. It also accepted that Miss Smith, the dismissing officer, had a genuine belief in the misconduct allegations and had reasonable grounds for that belief.

On the unfair dismissal claim, the tribunal applied section 98 ERA 1996 and the Burchell approach. It found that the allegations were proven, that the claimant knew what she was expected to do, that she had been given additional time to complete the records, and that she had given an untruthful account of what she had done. The tribunal held that dismissal fell within the band of reasonable responses because the respondent reasonably concluded that trust and confidence had been destroyed, there was a real risk of repetition, and the failures put patient care at risk. It rejected the claimant's procedural complaints and found no breach of the ACAS Code.

On wrongful dismissal, the tribunal asked whether the claimant's conduct amounted to a repudiatory breach entitling the respondent to dismiss without notice. It found that the respondent had proved serious misconduct on the balance of probabilities, that the claimant had been untruthful about the work completed, and that her conduct irretrievably damaged trust and confidence. The tribunal therefore held that summary dismissal was contractually justified. Both complaints were dismissed.