Case 2403393/2023 · Employment Tribunal

Ms Sasha Burn v Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust — 2023

Case reference: 2403393/2023
Decision date: 2 October 2023
Jurisdiction: England & Wales
Judge: Employment Judge Dennehy Case
Venue: Manchester via Cloud Video Platform

Indexed: 17 May 2026

Parties

2 named

Claimant

Ms Sasha Burn

Respondent

Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust

Key findings

Tribunal's reasoning

This was an open preliminary hearing on the respondent's application for strike out and, in the alternative, deposit orders concerning the claimant's protected disclosure automatic unfair dismissal case. The claimant had been employed as a consultant neurosurgeon and was dismissed after disciplinary proceedings; she alleged that she had made a protected disclosure and that this was connected to her dismissal.

The Tribunal found that there were several factual disputes, including whether a protected disclosure had been made, differing accounts of an exchange with a consultant anaesthetist, and issues about the handling of the disciplinary and appeal process. It held that those disputes should be resolved at a full merits hearing and that the preliminary hearing should not become a mini-trial.

Taking the claimant's case at its highest, the Tribunal refused to strike out the claim and also declined to make deposit orders. It found that the protected disclosure issue may depend on inferences drawn after full factual findings and could not be said to have no reasonable prospects or little reasonable prospect of success at this stage.

Claims and outcomes

3 findings recorded

This case has mixed outcomes under at least one legal claim type. A tribunal can uphold some allegations and dismiss others under the same legal head, so rows below may represent separate issues or allegation groups from the judgment.

Claim type	Issue or finding	Outcome	Protected characteristic	Award
Whistleblowing	The judgment decided the respondent's application to strike out and/or seek deposit orders in relation to the claimant's automatic unfair dismissal claim under section 103A ERA 1996. The application was refused; the substantive claim was not finally determined.	Other	—	—
Unfair dismissal	The claimant's ordinary unfair dismissal claim under section 98 ERA 1996 was identified in the background. This preliminary judgment did not decide the merits of that claim.	Other	—	—
Whistleblowing	The judgment records that the claimant's protected disclosure detriment claim under section 47B ERA 1996, as set out at paragraphs 83(s) and (u) of the grounds of complaint, had been dismissed upon withdrawal by consent at an earlier preliminary hearing.	Withdrawn	—	—

Legal tests applied

9 references

Official outcome judgment PDF

Gov.uk primary record

The official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.

Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

How we got this data

Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.

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