Miss PE Hyde v The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust — 2021

The Tribunal found that the claimant was disabled by depression and anxiety throughout the material period. It found that although she did not tell her line manager about the disability, she had declared a mental health condition on a new starter form returned to HR, which fixed the respondent with knowledge of the disability from 1 February 2019 and imputed that knowledge to the line manager.

The reasonable adjustments complaint was dismissed. The Tribunal accepted that the respondent applied a PCP requiring the claimant to undertake and cope with the usual rigours of her band 6 role, and that this placed her at a substantial disadvantage. However, it found that the respondent had made all reasonable adjustments, including support from her manager and junior colleagues, temporary limitation of some duties, and arrangements around the TWW team, the band 7 vacancy, the MDT room, home working, and annual leave.

The section 15 claim succeeded in relation to the decision to end the claimant's fixed-term contract early. The Tribunal did not accept that the respondent encouraged the substantive post-holder to return early from maternity leave, but found that the claimant's sickness absence arose from her disability and was a material and effective reason for the decision to terminate the contract in September 2019. The respondent did not advance a proportionality defence. Remedy was left to a later hearing.