Mrs S Jones v Southport And Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust — 2021

Mrs Jones was employed by the respondent hospital as a Sister from 2005 and was off sick from November 2017 after an injury at work. The tribunal found that there had been a delay in submitting the industrial injury allowance paperwork, which meant her pay fell to half pay in May 2018 and the injury allowance was not paid until later, with the result that she suffered a significant shortfall in pay for several months and received unclear payslips.

The claimant raised a grievance in November 2018 about the delay in processing the injury allowance, unexplained deductions, missing annual leave payment and the management of her sickness absence. The tribunal found that the sickness absence management was broadly in line with policy and did not itself amount to a breach, but it also found that the claimant’s complaint about bullying by colleagues was not adequately dealt with and remained outstanding when she returned to work. The tribunal further found that the respondent wrongly deducted industrial injuries disablement benefit from the injury allowance, even though that benefit was non-contributory, and that HR and Payroll failed to take ownership of the issue until after the claimant had escalated matters and resigned.

Applying section 95(1)(c) ERA 1996, Western Excavating, Malik, Goold and the last straw approach discussed in Kaur, the tribunal held that the cumulative effect of the pay problems, the failure properly to investigate the deduction issue, and the unresolved bullying complaint destroyed trust and confidence. It found that the claimant did not affirm that cumulative breach, resigned within a week of returning to work, and resigned in response to it. The claim of constructive unfair dismissal was therefore successful.