Mrs Lauren Sibbons v NHS North East London CCG — 2021

Mrs Lauren Sibbons worked for NHS North East London CCG from 31 July 2017 until she resigned on 27 July 2020. The tribunal accepted that she had PTSD, that the Respondent knew of that disability, and that her son was also disabled. It also recorded the history of her commute, flexible working arrangements, pay progression applications, grievance process, sickness absence, reorganisation, and return to work, all of which formed the background to the pleaded claims.

On the disability discrimination issues, the tribunal found that the Respondent acted for non-discriminatory reasons. It held that the flexible working decisions, the move away from compressed hours on return from sickness absence, the later week-by-week homeworking arrangement, the performance action plans, and the removal of the CDGM project were driven by business needs or genuine performance concerns, not by the Claimant's disability or her son's disability. The tribunal also rejected the pleaded allegations that the Claimant had been treated less favourably because of disability or association with disability.

The reasonable adjustments claim failed because the tribunal found that most of the pleaded PCPs were not actually applied. It accepted that the organisational appraisal policy was a PCP, but held that the Claimant had not shown a substantial disadvantage arising from that policy. The tribunal noted that the Respondent had in practice made a number of arrangements that assisted the Claimant, including homeworking at points, compressed hours on trial, a phased return, a temporary change of line manager, and regular one-to-one support.

The harassment claim was also dismissed. The tribunal accepted that some conduct related to disability, including discussion of medication side-effects, but held that the conduct was supportive or otherwise not serious enough to meet the statutory threshold. Looking at the conduct as a whole, it concluded that it did not violate the Claimant's dignity or create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.

On constructive unfair dismissal, the tribunal held that there was no repudiatory breach of contract. It found that the grievance investigation was reasonably thorough, that the non-implementation of some recommendations was explained by sickness absence and the Covid-19 lockdown, and that Ms Mazarelo's disclosure of the Claimant's son's mugging was unfortunate but not sufficiently serious to destroy trust and confidence. The tribunal found that the Claimant resigned because she had secured another job she preferred, and that she had affirmed the contract by continuing to work and delaying resignation. As a result, the unfair dismissal claim failed and no remedy was awarded.