Miss. L Mubika v South West London & St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust — 2023

Miss L Mubika worked for the respondent first as bank staff and later in a permanent Band 6 role on Hume Ward. After a fall at work on 3 February 2021, she remained away from work for a period, later received Occupational Health advice excluding her from restraint and other physically demanding duties, and was temporarily redeployed to Burntwood Villas from September 2021 with the understanding that she would receive physiotherapy and return to Hume Ward.

The tribunal found that Mr Adeniya told the claimant on 3 December 2021 that if she could not restrain she had better start looking for a job elsewhere. It also found that the respondent had not put a proper support plan in place before the claimant was scheduled to return to Hume Ward on 3 January 2022. The tribunal accepted that some aspects of sickness management were unreasonable, including the way the sickness policy was applied and the handling of the claimant's return to work, but it held that those matters did not amount to constructive dismissal. It concluded that the claimant resigned on 4 March 2022 because she wanted to focus on treatment and recovery and retain the flexibility of bank work, rather than in response to the breaches it had identified.

The respondent admitted that it actually dismissed the claimant on 25 March 2022 during her notice period, and the tribunal found the dismissal unfair because no fair reason had been pleaded or proved. It also held that the respondent was in breach of contract in relation to notice pay from 26 March 2022 to 4 May 2022. On the wages complaint, the tribunal found that the respondent made an unauthorised deduction by recovering £490.73 as an overpayment, because the claimant had worked PPI training on 30 and 31 March 2022. The hearing determined liability only and no quantified remedy was decided in this judgment.