Mr Nathan Hills v South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust — 2022

The claimant, a Resource Dispatcher employed from 25 April 2016, resigned on 14 August 2021 after a prolonged period of grievance and disciplinary investigations about workplace complaints. The Tribunal said the claim was about the conduct of those investigations, not the underlying complaints themselves, and it accepted that the respondent merged multiple complaints and appointed an external investigator, Ms Karen Wise, in February 2021. The Tribunal found that step reasonable and, overall, to the claimant's advantage.

The Tribunal rejected the specific express breaches relied on by the claimant. It found there was no express term requiring a grievance hearing itself to be held within 28 days, only that arrangements and the invite should be sent within 28 days from completion of the investigation. It also found that the claimant resigned before the disciplinary hearing was scheduled for 23 August 2021, so there was no failure to give seven days' notice at that point, and it accepted that disciplinary policy version 5 remained in force until version 6 was issued in February 2022.

The claimant said the final trigger for resignation was an incomplete information pack sent to his union representative, a misworded invitation letter, and a cancelled July meeting. The Tribunal found the misworded letter post-dated the resignation and that no July disciplinary meeting had been arranged. It treated the incomplete pack as an administrative error that was quickly rectified, did not disadvantage the claimant, and was not capable of amounting to a final straw or repudiatory breach.

Applying section 95(1)(c) ERA 1996 and the authorities in Western Excavating, Kaur, Omilaju, Malik and Williams, the Tribunal held that although the process had taken too long, involved avoidable mistakes and poor communication, much of the delay was explained by COVID-19 pressures and the complexity of the parallel investigations. It found any earlier complaints had been affirmed because the claimant continued with the process, and it dismissed the constructive dismissal claim. No monetary remedy was awarded.