£10m compensation bill for NHS Fife embroiled in trans row
A Scottish health board - which has been embroiled in a landmark legal battle over a transgender employee's use of female changing rooms - has cost taxpayers over £10 million in compensation claims between 2019-20 and 2023-24.
On Tuesday, figures obtained by the Scottish Conservatives through Freedom of Information requests revealed that health boards across Scotland have paid out £227 million in compensation over the past five years.
NHS Fife, currently in the midst of a high profile court case against one of its own nurses whom it suspended after she complained about a transgender doctor in a female changing room, accounted for £10,262,670 of the total figure following 66 successful compensation claims.
This is not the only instance of taxpayers having to foot a potentially avoidable bill for the actions of NHS Fife in recent years.
Back in October, the trust sought to keep the tribunal proceedings involving nurse Sandie Peggie and transgender doctor Beth Upton secret. It applied for a Rule 50 Order, which would provide anonymity to the parties and impose other reporting restrictions on the case, against the wishes of Ms Peggie who is claiming she was subjected to harassment under the Equality Act 2010 by being made to share a changing room with Dr Upton, a biological man.
NHS Fife lost the bid as the judge deemed it 'an important part of the open justice principle' for the evidence presented by the parties to be publicly scrutinised.
How much did this failed attempt at secrecy at the behest of Dr Upton - whose lawyer is also representing his employer - cost NHS Fife? We cannot be sure because the trust has refused to disclose that information.
Local press have estimated the cost to be around £200,000 with reputed policy analysts Murray Blackburn Mackenzie quoting this reported figure in their detailed analysis of the case.
Sarah Phillimore, barrister and co-founder of the campaign group Fair Cop, tells me 'it's a massive waste of public money'.
But NHS Fife's quest for secrecy continued and in April, this newspaper reported that the trust wanted to restrict 'virtual viewing' of the tribunal so that only journalists could watch it when it restarted in July, following the trust's alleged failure to disclose documents related to internal investigation into the matter which Ms Peggie's lawyers have termed to be 'extraordinarily negligent'.
'Absolutely appalling', is how Scottish Conservative MSP Roz McCall characterises the trust's behaviour throughout the whole episode, with repeated attempts at what critics see as resisting scrutiny. Instead, 'the money could be spent on frontline patient care'.
'The staggering level of compensation payouts has already left NHS Fife strapped for cash, and the huge amount of money that has been squandered on this case only adds insult to injury.'
The historic Supreme Court ruling which was delivered in April that the terms 'woman' and 'sex' in the 2010 Equality Act referred to biological sex rather than acquired gender should now settle the matter, according to some including Ms Peggie.
In her first public statement since the Supreme Court ruling, the veteran nurse called for NHS Fife to abandon its policy of 'permitting any man who identifies as a woman access to female-only single-sex spaces'.
Campaigners such as Ms Philimore would support this view. Some legitimate concern might have previously existed around the interpretation of legislation around single-sex spaces 'but that's been cleared up' now by the Supreme Court, she tells me.
But a host of Scottish health boards are reportedly trying to resist implementing the ruling, instead agreeing only to review and update their policies after the Equalities and Human Rights Commission issues a new code of practice in the summer.
NHS Fife is amongst those trusts. Earlier in the week, a spokesman told the Telegraph, '[t]he Equality and Human Rights Commission have intimated that a new statutory code of practice and non-statutory guidance will be available in the summer. We will review this and any relevant updates to NHS Scotland workforce policies and guides as appropriate.'
And so, despite a clear ruling from the highest court in the land, resolution seems to elude us on the matter of same-sex spaces.
Meanwhile, taxpayers continue to pick up the ever-rising bills for compensation and ideological battles while the NHS - perpetually in crisis - struggles to focus its attention and resources on the one thing it is meant to - delivering healthcare.
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