Does the doctor know best? Not in Kirkcaldy, it seems - Sue Webber
It’s well known in sports clubs that when the president comes out to express full confidence in the manager then it’s only a matter of time before the manager is looking for a new job.
That being so, perhaps I should give First Minster John Swinney the benefit of the doubt after he said he had confidence in NHS Fife, after the nurse at the centre of the trans discrimination row, Sandie Peggie, was cleared of all misconduct allegations arising from a complaint against her from the trans-identifying male doctor Beth Upton.
“I have confidence in the board of NHS Fife. They have got to get on with delivering health services for the people of Fife,” he said, as Ms Peggie’s employment tribunal case against the health board dragged on. So much for not commenting on a live case but while the second part was obvious, he did not say he had “full” confidence.
Maybe that was a deliberate omission, but after the board issued an extraordinary 1700-word statement on Friday, which even attacked Ms Peggie’s lawyer, any doubts about the board’s competence evaporated.
The statement was then repeatedly edited as the extent of the blunder became clear, but whoever approved such explosive claims and accusations during live proceedings must have taken leave of their senses.
“It is up to NHS Fife to determine how to approach [the case] and they must take cognisance of all of the obligations and issues of the process as they do so,” said Mr Swinney before it was released, something NHS Fife very clearly didn’t understand.
The entire senior management must surely know their days are numbered, so maybe they are just trying to go down fighting, but it is hard to understand why they didn’t accept responsibility for this fiasco and called a halt at the tribunal before any more damage was done to their already trashed reputations.
But no, the destruction of NHS Fife’s credibility goes on and last week the tribunal heard astonishing evidence from their £51,000-a-year-plus equalities officer, 25-year-old Isla Bamba, who effectively said she needed a test to confirm she was a woman, which must surely disqualify her for any role requiring a modicum of common sense.
On Monday it was the turn of clinical services manager Lottie Myles, who at least had the resolve to lift Ms Pegge’s suspension in March and resist what seemed to be a concerted campaign by senior medics to keep Ms Peggie away from her work, despite being an A&E specialist with 30 years of unblemished service.
Even so, Ms Myles confidently said she’d examined the 2010 Equalities Act and “felt reassured in my research that the elements regarding gender recognition say we are to treat the person in the sex they identify as.”
As far as I am aware, Ms Myles has no legal qualifications, so perhaps she should have sought advice, but five Supreme Court judges were in no doubt earlier this year in unanimously finding the definition of "sex" in the Act referred to biological sex, not the person's own gender identity.
This is the level of expertise on which NHS Fife relied, but every day of this tribunal that passes shows just how much senior management was in thrall to trans ideology to the exclusion of all logic.
Doctor knows best? Not in Kirkcaldy they don’t.