Claimant v A Udoye v NHS England (Cheshire and Merseyside) and others — 2019

At a public preliminary hearing on 22 July 2019 before Employment Judge Hoey sitting alone, the tribunal allowed the claimant's amendment and then considered the respondents' applications to strike out claims or require deposits. The dispute concerned race-discrimination allegations brought by a doctor against NHS England (Cheshire and Merseyside), Health Education England - North East, Linda Cullen and the General Medical Council, arising out of the GP Induction and Refresher Scheme, the claimant's GP register status, referrals to the GMC and later fitness-to-practice steps.

The tribunal proceeded on the basis that the claimant's case was taken at its highest, but held that in most of the pleaded claims he had not identified facts from which race could properly be inferred. Applying Rule 37, the strike-out authorities and the Equality Act burden-of-proof cases, it struck out original claims at paragraphs 41(g), (h), (i), (j), (k), (n), (o) and (q), and amended claims (d), (e) and (f). It also held that paragraph 41(n), which challenged the Interim Orders Tribunal process, was outside the tribunal's jurisdiction because the statutory appeal route was available.

Deposit orders of £300 each, totalling £3,000, were made for original paragraphs 41(a), (b), (c), (d), (e), (f), (l), (m), (p) and (r). The tribunal said those claims had little reasonable prospects of success, but they were not struck out. It took account of the claimant's evidence that his income only just covered his outgoings and that he had about £9,000 of debt. Amended claims (a) and (c) were allowed to proceed, amended claim (b) was withdrawn, and no compensation or other merits award was made at this hearing; the only monetary orders were the deposits.