Health sector information

New and updated

• Date:

  4 November 2020

  Type:

  Commentary and insights

  Modern slavery statement changes: What will employers have to do differently?

  The Government has confirmed that it is going ahead with major changes to the duty on large employers to publish an annual modern slavery statement. What changes will employers have to make to the content of, and process for publishing, their statement and which additional employers will be covered?

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Right to work: Employer wrong to rely on checking service

  In Badara v Pulse Healthcare Ltd, the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that the employer should not have relied solely on negative Home Office checks when it dismissed the employee for failing to provide right to work documentation.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Whistleblowing: Court of Appeal reiterates two-stage "public interest" test

  In Ibrahim v HCA International Ltd, the Court of Appeal reiterated the two-step test for an employment tribunal to follow when deciding if the claimant had a reasonable belief that the disclosures they were making were "in the public interest".

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Employers not liable for third-party harassment, confirms EAT

  In Bessong v Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that the Equality Act 2010 cannot be interpreted to make an NHS trust vicariously liable for race discrimination for a patient's racially motivated attack on a mental-health nurse.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  NHS trust's monitoring of junior doctors' rest breaks is "flawed"

  In Hallett v Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the Court of Appeal held that an NHS trust's use of commercial software to monitor rest breaks results in a breach of junior doctors' terms and conditions of service.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  No religious discrimination where director suspended after publicly opposing same-sex adoption

  In Page v NHS Trust Development Authority, the Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld an employment tribunal decision that there was no religious discrimination where a non-executive director was suspended after voicing his opposition to same-sex couple adoption in the media.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Court of Appeal rules that voluntary overtime must be included in holiday pay

  In East of England Ambulance NHS Trust v Flowers and others, the Court of Appeal held that ambulance workers are contractually entitled to have voluntary overtime included in the calculation of their holiday pay and, under the Working Time Directive (2003/88/EC), to have it included where it is sufficiently regular and settled.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Dismissal for inappropriate religious conversations was fair, rules Court of Appeal

  In Kuteh v Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust, the Court of Appeal held that the NHS trust fairly dismissed a Christian nurse for initiating inappropriate conversations about religion with patients in breach of a lawful management instruction.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Dismissing mentally ill employee for failing to attend meetings was discrimination, decides tribunal

  In Flemming v East of England Ambulance Services NHS Trust, an employment tribunal held that an NHS Trust discriminated against a mentally ill employee by dismissing him for gross misconduct following his failure to attend a sickness absence review meeting and occupational health appointments.

• Date:

  14 March 2019

  Type:

  Commentary and insights

  Whistleblowing in the NHS

  Consultant editor Darren Newman considers whistleblowing in the NHS, focusing on the public interest test and the danger of working on the basis that an allegation is malicious.