Mr Paul Winfield v East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust — 2024

Mr Winfield, a paramedic, was dismissed with effect from 23 June 2022 for capability due to ill health after being absent from work from 4 November 2019. The tribunal accepted that the Respondent had repeatedly tried to support a return to work, including eight welfare meetings, ten occupational health referrals, funding for fifteen CBT sessions, redeployment options and staged return-to-work plans, but the Claimant remained medically certified unfit for work and would not return to Nottinghamshire because he regarded that as accepting the earlier disciplinary sanction.

On whistleblowing, the tribunal found the alleged disclosure to Vijay Sharma on 18 November 2020 was not proved in sufficient detail to amount to a protected disclosure. The emails to Roger Watson on 18 January 2021 were held to be vague, lacking sufficient factual content under s.43B ERA 1996, and directed to the Claimant's personal circumstances rather than matters in the public interest. The whistleblowing detriment claim therefore failed, and the automatic unfair dismissal claim under s.103A ERA 1996 failed for the same reason.

The ordinary unfair dismissal claim failed because the tribunal accepted capability by reason of ill health as the reason for dismissal. It found the Respondent had the up-to-date medical position, including the Claimant's Med 3 certificates and the October 2021 occupational health report, consulted him over many months, considered alternatives and redeployment, and was entitled to conclude there was no foreseeable return when he submitted a further Med 3 rather than signing fit.

The reasonable adjustments claim was dismissed. The tribunal accepted the Respondent had treated the Claimant's anxiety and depression as a disability, but found autism was not known to the Respondent at the material time and was not established on the evidence then before it. It held that the appeal arrangements complained of either were one-off responses to the circumstances, such as not allowing his 17-year-old daughter to attend the hearing, or did not put him at a substantial disadvantage, including the remote note-taking arrangement, the temporary use of Ms Wheldon, and the offer of a private space during adjournments. The unlawful deduction claim also failed because the Claimant had received full pay and half pay beyond his contractual entitlement after the Respondent exercised discretion, so there was no unlawful deduction from wages.