Mr David Johnson v North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust — 2025

This was a preliminary hearing on whether Mr David Johnson was an employee of North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust and, as a result, whether the tribunal had jurisdiction to hear his automatic unfair dismissal claim. The tribunal treated the written contract as the exclusive record of the parties' agreement, relying on MOD HQ Defence Dental Service v Kettle, and said that if the contract wording was ambiguous the contra proferentem doctrine would apply in the claimant's favour.

The tribunal found that the practical reality of the relationship pointed to employment. It accepted that control was very high, substitution was impossible, the claimant was integrated into the Trust's organisation, and he had to use the Trust's equipment and systems. It also found that there was mutuality of obligation once shifts were allocated. The tribunal rejected the proposition that matters such as time sheets, the assignment wording on pay documents, the absence of an interview, the lack of a named line manager, or the absence of full NHS sick pay were determinative against employee status.

The tribunal concluded that the reality of the arrangement was short-term or fixed-term employment, regardless of the contract label of 'directly engaged temporary agency workers'. It therefore held that Mr Johnson was an employee of the respondent at the relevant time and that the tribunal had jurisdiction to hear his automatic unfair dismissal claim. No substantive liability decision on dismissal, and no remedy, was determined in this judgment.