In person For the v Respondent — 2023

At a five-day hearing in London South, Employment Judge Morton sitting with Ms A Boyce and Mr W Dixon heard claims by Ms A K Suniar against Hounslow & Richmond Community Healthcare NHS Trust. The tribunal accepted that the claimant was disabled by reason of dyslexia, stress, anxiety and depression, but held that all of her claims were not well founded and were dismissed. It found that the respondent knew about her dyslexia at recruitment, but was entitled to rely on her assurances about coping strategies and did not then know, and could not reasonably have been expected to know, that dyslexia was causing the later performance concerns.

When performance issues emerged after the claimant moved into the Teddington Memorial Hospital and Community Recovery Service rotations, the respondent reduced her caseload, increased supervision, paused sickness absence monitoring, referred her to occupational health and Access to Work, and later adjusted the return-to-work plan after the pandemic interruption. The tribunal held that, once the respondent became aware that dyslexia was likely to be affecting her work, it acted promptly and reasonably to identify and implement support, including software, supervision, training and other adjustments. It rejected the complaint that there had been an unreasonable delay in providing the Access to Work equipment, and found that the claimant's mental health difficulties were bound up with the performance management process rather than showing a separate disadvantage requiring additional specific measures.

The tribunal also held that the informal capability process and the refusal to support the BAME reverse mentoring application did not give rise to successful claims. It considered the capability process potentially unfavourable from the claimant's perspective but justified as a proportionate means of achieving safe clinical practice, and it held that the reverse mentoring refusal was objectively justified because she needed to focus on core competencies. There was no evidence that race played any part in the improvement notice or mentoring decision, and no evidence that the grievance relied on as a protected act caused the treatment complained of. Because none of the claims succeeded, the tribunal did not need to decide the time-limit issues and made no award.