a day ago
- Health
- The Herald Scotland
Peggie v NHS Fife: The crucial lesson from Darlington nurses
The similarities between Sandie Peggie's changing room row against NHS Fife and eight nurses in Darlington are startling.
Both centre around transgender medics' access to female-only changing rooms, with health boards in Fife and Darlington working off guidelines that allows those to use facilities of their chosen gender – rather than biological sex.
And there is just a few short months separating the two rows.
In summer 2023, nurses at Darlington Memorial Hospital began expressing concern at sharing changing facilities with a colleague who was born male but identifies as a woman.
A legal challenge followed, with the group of nurses criticising the use of County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust's policy called 'Transitioning in the Workplace'.
That allowed anyone identifying as a woman to access female changing spaces.
Meanwhile, on Christmas Eve in 2023, Kirkcaldy nurse Ms Peggie complained about sharing a changing room with Dr Beth Upton, a trans woman.
Her legal row with NHS Fife has become one of the biggest news stories of the year.
Ms Peggie, similar to the Darlington nurses, had been told to use a cupboard or toilet cubicle to change instead of the female-only space in an attempt to resolve the issue.
However, it is the differences between the cases that are the most revealing – and they could serve as an important lesson to Scotland.
While Ms Peggie's employment tribunal against MHS Fife resumes on Wednesday, the Darlington nurses will not go to court until October.
And yet, the Darlington Eight as they have become known have already had a win.
In the wake of the Supreme Court judgment, which ruled the definition of a woman was binary and based on biological sex, UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting personally intervened on the case.
He had ordered Darlington Memorial Hospital to give female nurses their own changing room.
This decision by Mr Streeting is significant and has cooled what could have been a troublesome affair for the NHS in England.
NHS England also declared the changing facilities at the Darlington Memorial Hospital were 'inadequate' for female staff.
In Scotland it is a different story entirely.
Health Secretary Neil Gray has maintained he has faith in the board at NHS Fife.
He was warned in June last year the health board may have acted illegally in the female-only changing room row.
Read more Unspun:
In February, Mr Gray was asked by journalists if he had confidence in the management of NHS Fife, with the Health Secretary replying: 'Of course I do'.
Since then, a political storm has erupted. The row over gender policy in Scotland has once again consumed Scottish politics, and it appears it is here to stay.
An intervention from the Health Secretary of course would not have ended the dispute, with Ms Peggie free to continue her legal case against NHS Fife.
But his intervention could have been crucial. It could have saved time, money and ended a toxic debate on both sides.
The Darlington Eight showed us there was an easy solution but Scotland did not take it.
