Ms P Purcell v Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust — 2021

The claimant presented a claim on 18 June 2018 alleging that she had been dismissed and subjected to detriment because she made protected disclosures. The respondent denied that a protected disclosure had been made and said the claimant had resigned. The case reached a final hearing in April 2021, but after hearing the claimant's evidence the respondent applied to strike out the protected disclosure complaints under rule 37(1).

The tribunal accepted the claimant's case at its highest and treated the alleged disclosure as complaints to Helen Blocke and, in writing, to Professor Christopher Eden that hospital numbers were not being supplied in dictations, and later that patient names were also omitted. It held that the material complained of did not reasonably show that health and safety was likely to be endangered within section 43B ERA 1996. On the tribunal's reasoning, the issue caused extra work and inconvenience for the claimant, but it did not establish a reasonable belief that patients would be endangered because any concern about incorrect letters could be managed before a letter was sent.

Because the tribunal concluded that the claimant could not reasonably have believed that the alleged practice tended to show danger to health or safety, no qualifying disclosure was shown and the protected disclosure complaints had no reasonable prospect of success. The claim was therefore struck out. The respondent's application for costs was dismissed; the tribunal noted the claimant's means, her status as a litigant in person, and that although the case had no reasonable prospect of success, the balance of injustice did not justify a costs order.