Miss H Cottam v Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust — 2020

Miss H Cottam was a Senior CAMHS Practitioner. The tribunal found that relations in the Team had deteriorated by the end of 2018 and early 2019, particularly between the claimant and Ms Turner, but it preferred the respondent's evidence on most factual disputes and did not accept that there had been a campaign of bullying and ostracization by Ms Wynn and Ms Turner.

On the constructive dismissal claim, the tribunal accepted that workload pressures and team tensions existed, but held that the respondent's conduct, whether looked at separately or cumulatively, did not amount to a repudiatory breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence. It found that Ms Wynn had told the claimant and Ms Turner to act professionally, that external facilitation was explored, and that the 23 April 2019 meeting was an informal fact-finding meeting aimed at identifying solutions rather than a breach. The claimant resigned on 29 April 2019, but the tribunal found that resignation was not a constructive dismissal.

On the whistleblowing issues, the tribunal found that the claimant made protected disclosures in late November 2018 when she raised with team leaders and then Mr Anderton concerns about lack of capacity to support a young person on the internal waiting list. It held that those disclosures were made in the public interest and tended to show that the health or safety of an individual might be endangered.

By contrast, the tribunal rejected the alleged disclosures said to have been made on 20 November 2018, at the 30 January 2019 awayday, and on 15 March and 23 April 2019. It found some were not raised as alleged, some were too general or lacked sufficient factual content, and some did not involve a reasonable belief in public interest or in a risk to health or safety. The protected disclosures that were found played no part in the later treatment of the claimant.

Because the claimant was not constructively dismissed and the tribunal found no causal link between the protected disclosures and the events relied on, the claims were dismissed and no remedy was awarded.