Mr Anthony Owa v Barking, Havering and Redbridge University NHS Trust — 2019

Mr Anthony Owa was appointed as a consultant ENT surgeon in 2003. The case concerned long-running disputes over his old-contract terms, including job planning, notional half-days, travel time, skull-base work, clinical lead payments and his eventual move to the new contract. The tribunal found a prolonged deterioration in relations within the ENT department, but it did not accept that the contractual and payment disagreements established race discrimination.

On the historic remuneration allegations, the tribunal held that Mr Owa had not established a contractual entitlement to the extra skull-base sessions he claimed, and that the clinical lead payment issues were explained by the absence or content of the job plan and by his maximum part-time status. It also held that the travel-time dispute turned on the meaning of the contract rather than race. The tribunal found no appropriate comparators and no facts from which race could be inferred in relation to the pay and job-planning complaints.

The tribunal dealt separately with the 22 December 2016 theatre incident. It found that the claimant left an operation, that NCAS advice was sought, and that the Trust then restricted his practice and later pursued disciplinary action. It accepted that there were serious procedural shortcomings in the restriction and appeal process, including failures to follow MHPS timescales and to give the claimant full information about the restriction meeting and appeal rights, but it held that the conduct was driven by patient safety concerns, operational pressure and HR failings rather than race.

The tribunal also rejected the victimisation case. The protected acts relied on were the 17 October 2016 race complaint, the 4 December 2017 patient-safety complaint and the 15 January 2018 complaints, but the tribunal found that the Trust’s responses were explained by parallel investigations, departmental governance requirements and wider organisational inefficiency. The whistleblowing detriment claims were withdrawn. The unlawful deduction of wages claims failed because, on the tribunal’s construction of the old contract, Mr Owa remained entitled to the maximum-part-time arrangement with the 1/11 reduction and had been paid that sum. No monetary award was made.