Ms N Coleman v Highcroft Care Home Ltd — 2021

Ms N Coleman brought claims for unfair dismissal, holiday pay and notice pay. At the hearing she accepted payment of the holiday pay and notice pay, so those claims were withdrawn. The Tribunal upheld the unfair dismissal claim because Highcroft Care Home Ltd dismissed her on 1 September 2020 without a disciplinary hearing, without notice of any right of appeal, and without any appeal hearing. The Tribunal found that the Respondent breached the ACAS Code of Practice (2015) and that a basic fair procedure could and should have been followed even though the Respondent was a small employer.

On the factual issues, the Tribunal found that the Claimant, who was a senior carer, had not properly completed the pressure area check form on 9 August 2020 because she and her colleague did not sign each check at the time it was done. It also found that the medication form recorded a 6pm dose as administered before it had in fact been given, and that 20 Ibuprofen tablets were missing after the Claimant either discarded them or put them somewhere other than the returns box. The Tribunal rejected the Respondent's characterisation of this as falsification of records and instead described it as sloppy and inaccurate record keeping, but found the conduct blameworthy because of the Claimant's seniority and the regulated care setting. It rejected the room-to-room handover allegation as unfounded and treated the grievance-texts issue as less serious, though it contributed to strained working relations.

For remedy, the Tribunal held that there was a 100% chance the Claimant would have been dismissed in any event if a fair procedure had been followed, but that the procedure would likely have extended her employment by two weeks, so the compensatory loss was limited to two weeks' net pay and benefits. It reduced both the basic award under s122(2) ERA 1996 and the compensatory award under s123(6) ERA 1996 by 75% for contributory conduct, and listed a remedy hearing for 17 September 2021 if the parties could not agree the amount.