EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case No: 8001050/2025 Held in Aberdeen on September 2025 Employment Judge N M Hosie Dr J Sim v Represented by Mr C Harrington, Solicitor Highland Health Board — 2025

Dr Juliet Sim brought a claim for unlawful deduction from wages in relation to sick pay, and also sought a determination of her written employment particulars concerning contractual entitlement to sick pay. She began work with Highland Health Board as a Rural Emergency Practitioner on 24 September 2024, became sick from 20 November 2024 to 11 February 2025, and received one month of full sick pay, with the respondent declining to count her earlier locum work when calculating her entitlement.

The tribunal considered whether Dr Sim's prior work as a self-employed locum GP between April 2023 and October 2024 counted as reckonable service under paragraph 7.5 of the August 2007 Consultant Grade Terms and Conditions of Service. Applying ordinary contractual interpretation and the authority of Hellewell, the tribunal held that the word "service" in paragraph 7.5.3 meant employment, not self-employment. It therefore found that the claimant's prior self-employed locum work was not previous qualifying service for sick pay purposes.

The tribunal also rejected the argument that the period of self-employed locum work fell within paragraph 7.5.17 on locum tenens. It recorded that the period when Dr Sim worked as a self-employed locum would not be considered "Locum Tenens" for that purpose, because paragraph 11.7 also referred to "service". On that basis, the tribunal concluded that the earlier locum work did not count as reckonable service and that Dr Sim was not entitled to the additional sick pay she claimed.

The alternative case based on the National Health Service (Superannuation) (Scotland) Regulations 1980 also failed. The tribunal held that the "service" referred to in those Regulations likewise meant employment, found that approval by Scottish Ministers had not been "in effect" granted for the claimant's prior self-employed locum work, and accepted the respondent's submission that the Regulations had been revoked in March 1995. The claim was dismissed.