Ms N Were v NHS Professionals Limited By CVP — 2022

This was a preliminary hearing on 7 April 2022 before Employment Judge Martin. The claimant had re-registered with NHS Professionals in February 2020 and worked shifts until 19 June 2020, after which a DBS check revealed convictions for theft, robbery and common assault. The respondent stopped further bookings, the Risk Assessment Panel decided not to continue her registration, and the appeal was rejected on 12 August 2020.

On unfair dismissal, the tribunal applied the statutory continuous service requirement in section 108 ERA 1996 and section 212 ERA 1996. It found there was no global contract between assignments, that the claimant was employed only during each assignment, and that there had been a break of about 4.5 years between the first and second periods of work. The tribunal held that the claimant therefore did not have the two years' continuous employment needed to bring an unfair dismissal claim, and it struck that claim out. It also found the unfair dismissal claim was presented out of time and said it would have dismissed it on that basis in any event.

The breach of contract claim was also held to be out of time and not well founded. For the disability discrimination claim, the tribunal assumed for the purpose of the hearing that the claimant met the definition of disabled person, but it said the case turned on causation: the respondent withdrew registration because the claimant had not disclosed convictions and because of the nature of those convictions, not because of her mental health conditions. The tribunal referred to section 15 Equality Act 2010, section 6 Equality Act 2010, and Regulations 3 and 4 of the Equality Act 2010 (Disability) Regulations 2010, and concluded that the case had no reasonable prospect of success. It therefore struck out the disability discrimination claim.