Miss S Stoedinova v Secretary of State for Health and Social Care — 2019

The hearing was a preliminary strike-out application under rules 37 and 39. The tribunal refused to strike out the claimant's direct race discrimination, harassment, and victimisation claims, finding there was enough in the claimant's explanation of her treatment and disclosures to allow those claims to proceed. It noted that any victimisation claim before the relevant protected act could not continue.

The indirect race discrimination claim was struck out. The tribunal accepted that the claimant said she had been disadvantaged by an "upside down" staffing structure, but held that the alleged practice would disadvantage higher-ranked staff generally and did not show a disproportionate disadvantage to people of Bulgarian national origin, so it had no reasonable prospect of success.

The whistleblowing claim was only partly preserved. The tribunal held that some alleged disclosures about public-sector malpractice, waste of public money, data reporting, KPI creation, use of data, pressure on trusts, and overseas visitor charging were reasonably arguable qualifying disclosures under section 43B ERA 1996. It struck out allegations about the claimant's own treatment and internal employment matters, including the absence of a work-from-home policy, and also struck out allegation 23 insofar as it was advanced as a protected disclosure. No monetary award was made at this stage.