Mrs A Ford v Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch — 2023

The claimant worked for Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch as a maternity investigator from September 2019. She alleged ten protected disclosures, mostly about care and record-keeping issues at Yeovil, together with a conflict-of-interest disclosure about another investigator. The tribunal held that only limited parts of PD1, PD2 and PD4 were protected disclosures: PD1 only to the extent that it identified locum registrars or specialist doctors performing emergency obstetric procedures without consultants being informed or present; PD2 in relation to the absence of enough neonatal resuscitation and foetal monitoring equipment in the maternity theatre; and PD4 in relation to an assertion that medical notes had been altered after the incident. It held that PD7, about a possible conflict of interest, was not a protected disclosure, and that PD5, PD6, PD8 and PD9 added nothing material.

On detriments, the tribunal rejected the claim that Maria Patterson consistently told the claimant she was not performing well or not doing her job, and it found that the one-to-one meetings were not consistently negative. It found that the 6 December 2019 email was not sent to the team and did not criticise the claimant in the way alleged. It accepted that D3a contained mild criticism about emailing a non-NHS address, but held that this would not be viewed by a reasonable employee as a detriment. It accepted that D3b contained criticism and was a detriment, but found that the protected disclosures had no more than a trivial influence on it. It held that D3c and D3d were not negative and critical, and that D4 was not a detriment because the Plymouth complaint was real and the meeting was an appropriate correction rather than bullying or an ambush in the legal sense.

The tribunal also rejected the constructive dismissal and s103A dismissal case. The claimant resigned on 16 March 2020, served her notice, and her resignation letter referred to being unhappy in the job and to many reasons for leaving, while thanking Ms Patterson for her support. The tribunal found no whistleblowing detriments that materially caused her resignation, no other breach of contract, and no dismissal for having made protected disclosures. The claim was therefore dismissed in full and no remedy hearing was needed.