Mrs S Rokad v NHS North Central London Integrated ICB RECORD OF A HEARING — 2025

Mrs S Rokad, a pharmacist with long service, resigned on 1 March 2024 after a grievance about workload, the voluntary redundancy process and the handling of sickness absence. The tribunal accepted that she had disabilities, including flat feet, hypertension, pulmonary hypertension and liver disease, but held that the respondent only had relevant knowledge of hypertension and pulmonary hypertension from February 2024 and did not have material knowledge of liver dysfunction at the earlier times in issue.

On the constructive dismissal claim, the tribunal found that the respondent's absence management policy already provided for formal sickness absence review meetings in long-term sickness cases and had not been newly changed in April 2022. It accepted that the claimant was told on 17 February 2022, and again in writing, that the April 2022 meeting was formal, although the invitation did not expressly use the phrase stage 1. It also found that there were periods of workload pressure as staffing reduced and work was reorganised, but that managers generally tried to reprioritise work and offer support. The tribunal held that the matters relied on, including the January 2024 workload concerns, the 31 January 2024 call, the voluntary redundancy correspondence and Mrs Singh's concern about the claimant's whereabouts on 10 and 11 January 2024, did not individually or cumulatively destroy trust and confidence, so the claimant had not been constructively dismissed and could not succeed in unfair dismissal.

The direct disability discrimination claims were withdrawn by the claimant during submissions. The section 15 claims failed because the tribunal did not accept that the medical appointments issue, the workload allegations, the 2022 stage 1 process, or the January 2024 communications were established as unfavourable treatment because of disability-related matters. In particular, it found no new absence policy in 2022, no failure to follow the occupational health advice in the way alleged, and no factual basis for the propositions that Mrs Lever had misled the claimant about the nature of the meeting or that the respondent had misapplied its policy.

The harassment claims under section 26 also failed. The tribunal held that, even where the claimant had felt upset or concerned, the conduct complained of did not cross the statutory threshold for unwanted conduct related to disability with the purpose or effect of violating dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. Because none of the claims succeeded, the tribunal did not need to determine the time-limit issues or any remedy.