In this test case, the employment tribunal found that an NHS trust had unlawfully amended its pay progression policy to provide that staff would be denied a pay rise if their sickness absence reached a certain level.
A Court of Appeal judge has taken the unusual step of criticising employers that are too quick to suspend employees accused of wrongdoing, after an NHS trust suspended and reported to the police two long-serving nurses who were accused of using inappropriate methods to restrain a violent patient.
In this case, the employment tribunal awarded an NHS worker, who was dismissed from his senior position in the NHS, close to £1m for race discrimination, despite the tribunal's refusal to increase the award for future loss of earnings on the basis of the worker's argument that he might have been promoted before he retired.
This employment tribunal has awarded a former NHS doctor one of the largest ever discrimination payouts after she was subjected to a sustained campaign of sex and race discrimination. The tribunal found the NHS trust and three senior managers, one of whom was the HR director, jointly and severally liable for compensation.
The NHS trust in this case unfairly treated two relatively minor criminal convictions as an adequate reason to dismiss a worker, in a case that is a cautionary tale for employers that treat a criminal conviction as an automatic reason for dismissal.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has upheld the employment tribunal decision that a former NHS trust chief executive was automatically unfairly dismissed for making a protected disclosure.