Hard-edged opinions are all too easily formed in the heat of disciplinary proceedings, but employers must be careful to stand back and take a balanced approach. In one case in which that did not happen, a senior hospital radiologist won the right to substantial compensation following her unfair dismissal.<\/p>\n
When facing a disciplinary hearing, the woman had compiled a defence pack of documents at home. It included extracts from patient records from which identifying information had only partially been redacted. Her employer, an NHS trust, took the view that that was a serious breach of its patient confidentiality policies and she was summarily dismissed for gross misconduct.<\/p>\n
In upholding her unfair dismissal claim, an Employment Tribunal (ET) found that the decision to sack her had been taken with a closed mind. There had been no consideration as to whether she had acted wilfully or whether what she had done justified summary dismissal.<\/p>\n
In rejecting the trust\u2019s challenge to that ruling, the Employment Appeal Tribunal found that the relevant manager had taken an unreasonably constrained approach, which failed to allow for the possibility of lesser sanctions and ignored mitigating factors. The trust\u2019s appeal against findings that her dismissal was also wrongful, and that she had not been guilty of any contributory fault, succeeded and those issues were remitted to the same ET for reconsideration.<\/p>\n