Mrs J Czapska Hill v Nursing and Midwifery Council and others — 2025

The claimant, a midwife and former Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust employee, brought Equality Act complaints against the Nursing and Midwifery Council and individual respondents arising from a Fitness to Practice hearing and its outcome. The tribunal held the NMC was a qualification body and that Article 38 of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (Fitness to Practice) Rules 2004 provided a statutory appeal to the High Court. It found the pleaded race, sex, religion or belief, and disability complaints were in substance challenges to the Fitness to Practice decision-making process and the order made, so section 120(7) of the Equality Act 2010 removed Employment Tribunal jurisdiction; those complaints against the first respondent were dismissed.

The claimant argued that late service of the NMC decision meant the High Court appeal route had expired, but the tribunal rejected that point. It held that the existence of the statutory appeal route, not whether the time for appeal had already run, determined jurisdiction, and that any remedy for the alleged lateness remained in the High Court.

The complaints against the fourth and fifth respondents under sections 110 and 111 of the Equality Act 2010 were struck out. The tribunal found the fourth respondent was an independent practising barrister and the fifth respondent was not an employee or agent of the NMC; their conduct in presenting the case and chairing the committee could not amount to instructing, causing or inducing discrimination on the facts found. The Part-Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 claims were dismissed because the claimant had never been employed by the first, fourth, or fifth respondents, so the regulations did not apply. No remedy was awarded.