A whistlelowing midwife who complained she was forced to quit her job due to bullying by colleagues has won her case for unfair dismissal.
Debbie Taylor, 46, was a community midwife working for East Surrey Hospital-based Surrey and Sussex NHS Healthcare Trust (SASH), working in clinics in Warlingham and Caterham until her resignation in September 2009.
During a four-day hearing, she told an employment tribunal her employers had taken so long to sort out her grievance she was left with no option other than to resign after a further incident of bullying.
Mrs Taylor brought her grievance in March 2009 claiming that she was being bullied and harassed by her colleagues over a period of 15 months, and about a lack of training and induction when she was moved to a new clinic.
The tribunal heard how Mrs Taylor had waited for over 10 weeks for a substantive response to her grievance, when the trust’s own guidelines suggested it should be dealt with within 10 days unless there was agreement otherwise.
Giving the tribunal’s decision, Judge Robert Salter found the Trust had breached its contractual obligations, saying: "The conduct of the Trust was such it evinced an intention not to be bound by its obligations, in a manner that was likely to destroy the relationship of trust and confidence [with Mrs Taylor]".
He added Gill Roberts in the trust’s Human Resources Department had failed to keep Mrs Taylor informed about the delay in processing her grievance, and failed to respond to e-mail correspondence from her.
And while initial agreement to extend time for the response had been agreed, the Trust had taken too long to deal with the complaint.
