EXCLUSIVE: Maximum NHS Fife payout to nurse at centre of trans tribunal revealed
Kirkcaldy medic Sandie Peggie is suing the health board after she was suspended following a row with trans doctor Beth Upton on Christmas Eve in 2023.
No settlement has been reached between the two parties.
According to details obtained by The Courier under Freedom of Information laws, the five-figure sum is the absolute maximum NHS Fife would be liable for.
If Ms Peggie is to be awarded more than £25,000, the rest of the money will come from a national risk scheme designed to protect NHS boards from heavy losses.
The Courier reported in March that the health board was only responsible for 'part' of the legal bill for the hearing.
We can also reveal NHS Fife has spent a total of £184,000 this year on six separate employment tribunals, covering legal fees and any settlements.
NHS Fife refused to say how much it has spent on Ms Peggie's tribunal, meaning the overall cost remains unknown.
On Wednesday, the health board was criticised by Scottish Information Commissioner David Hamilton for its 'poor handling' of FOI requests linked to spending.
Mr Hamilton said he was 'frustrated' by NHS Fife's approach which had led to an 'unnecessary delay'.
He ruled that the health board failed to do any proper checks to find the information requested.
NHS Fife previously claimed it could not provide the total sum spent on the case because this would disclose personal information.
Mr Hamilton disagreed.
'The commissioner cannot accept that the specific information requested can be the personal data of either of the individuals party to the tribunal,' he wrote.
'The costs are the authority's, not theirs.'
A spokesperson for NHS Fife said: 'NHS Fife notes the report from the Scottish Information Commissioner and intends to comply fully with its decision notice.'
In January 2024, we reported that NHS Fife's total costs on legal claims had passed £1.8 million in five years.
The health board had to spend more than £180,000 on one single claim by a patient.
The NHS Fife trans row employment tribunal in Dundee is set to resume on July 16.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
33 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Trans doctor 'tried to mislead' tribunal over phone notes on Sandie Peggie
A trans doctor was trying to 'mislead' the landmark Sandie Peggie tribunal, it has been told. Phone notes made by female-identifying Dr Beth Upton following a dispute with the nurse had been edited, it was claimed. Ms Peggie was suspended from work at Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy, after she objected to the trans medic using the female changing area on Christmas Eve 2023. The 51-year-old has since launched an employment tribunal against NHS Fife and Dr Beth Upton. Yesterday it heard that NHS Fife did not commission a forensic or in-person check of Dr Upton's phone in May 2025. The health board's security analyst 'did not have a technical answer' for discrepancies on dates on Google Notes made by Dr Upton, the hearing was told. And IT expert Jim Borwick agreed with the suggestion the trans doctor 'was trying to mislead' the tribunal. Mr Borwick, director of KJB Computer Forensics Consultancy, had been commissioned by Ms Peggie's representatives to compile a report in to the notes. Mr Borwick wrote, 'Dr Upton is silent on fact that Notes can be rearranged with relative ease', and that he was 'perplexed' and 'at a loss' as to how the discrepancies had occurred, and was told 'notes did not include patient care allegations Dr Upton made about Ms Peggie'. One note from December 18, 2023, logged: 'Working nights, won't make eye contact, won't acknowledge my presence, haven't had direct conversation but can feel the dismissal/hostility.' But the tribunal heard it was edited on December 26 at 1.21am. Mr Borwick told the hearing: 'In addition to text on that date, this had been added so it is not contemporaneous.' Jane Russell, KC, for NHS Fife and Dr Upton, asked: 'When you said Dr Upton is silent on fact that notes can be re-arranged, you're suggesting that Dr Upton is trying to mislead the tribunal?' The IT expert told her: 'I suppose that's my comment, yes.' Ms Russell asked Mr Borwick if he had been instructed to come up with an 'explanation that there were lies on the part of Dr Upton' and to 'undermine Dr Upton's account of patient care allegations'. But the witness told her he was not 'trying to undermine anything', and added: 'I was told to recover notes about patient care allegations; no reason was given, just to recover those notes.' Ms Russell said in one screenshot, 'the conundrum is that the edited date predates the created date', and asked the witness if 'the only explanation for discrepancy is that Dr Upton is lying about creation dates?'. He said he could not recreate this, and nor could NHS Fife's information security manager Peter Donaldson. The tribunal heard a note entitled 'weird incident 26.08.23' was timestamped showing it was created on October 26, 2023, according to Google. Mr Donaldson told the tribunal: 'I don't believe Dr Upton was trying to mislead us in any way. 'I completely agree this is how Google presents; on the face of it the October date is the earliest date. I don't dispute that. The notes supplementary to that are the same.'
The Sun
35 minutes ago
- The Sun
NHS strike chaos threatens to spread as paramedics REJECT pay offer on first day of doctors' walkout
NHS strikes threatened to spread yesterday as paramedics in the GMB union voted to reject their annual pay offer. It came as a five-day walkout by hospital resident doctors began over pay, led by the British Medical Association union. NHS chiefs said the health service was still 'open for business'. But ambulance crews and other NHS staff in the GMB union yesterday voted 67 per cent in favour of rejecting their 3.6 per cent offer for this year's pay rise. Paramedics joined nursing strikes in the winter of 2022-23 and could vote to do so again if they cannot get a better offer from Health Secretary Wes Streeting. National Secretary Rachel Harrison said: 'We have written to Wes Streeting, asking him to meet with us to discuss pay and other issues.' The Royal College of Nursing is also angry at getting a lower wage rise than doctors — and hospital consultants with the BMA are also considering striking again. As resident doctors, formerly called junior doctors, kicked off their strike to demand for a 29 per cent pay rise over the 5.4 per cent offer, Mr Streeting warned he could not guarantee patient safety. He said: 'I'm really proud of the way that NHS leaders and frontline staff have mobilised to minimise the disruption and the risk of harm to patients. 'What I can't do is guarantee there will be none. That's why the BMA's action is so irresponsible.' The BMA has made one exception for its strike so far. It allowed resident doctors to be called in to cover neo-natal intensive care at Nottingham City Hospital to protect newborn babies' lives. Strike leader Dr Melissa Ryan, who works there, said: 'We don't have enough senior staff to cover the doctors that aren't there. "It is important to us that those very sick babies get a lot of care.'
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
IT expert says trans doctor's phone claims 'not possible'
Phone records in a tribunal involving a row between a nurse and a trans doctor were not examined in person or Donaldson, an information security manager for NHS Fife, instead joined a Teams call with Dr Beth Upton in May this year to assist in downloading notes from a mobile notes related to encounters the doctor had with Sandie Peggie, a nurse at the Victoria Hospital in Donaldson told the tribunal that "time was limited" but that it would have been "more beneficial" to have carried out the exercise in person. Ms Peggie and Dr Upton had a row on 24 December 2023 in the women's changing rooms, regarding whether the doctor should be allowed in there. The nurse was then suspended after Dr Upton made an allegation of bullying and harassment and cited concerns about "patient care".Ms Peggie has since lodged a claim against NHS Fife and Dr Upton, citing the Equality Act tribunal previously heard Dr Upton had recorded details of alleged incidents involving Ms Peggie prior to Christmas Eve in written notes on a asked if the "most reliable" way to ensure the phone information was accurate would have been to carry out a forensic examination, Mr Donaldson also agreed that an in-person meeting would have been better than a Teams call. Mr Donaldson said he could not offer a technical explanation for why the notes, including one entitled Weird Incident, showed a creation date of October 2023 but listed an edited date of August witness told the tribunal "he didn't believe for a minute that [Dr Upton] was trying to lead us up to the garden path" with was later stated by Dr Upton's legal team that other notes on the phone unrelated to Ms Peggie - including a shopping list - had the same issue with dates. Timeline of the Sandie Peggie tribunal Another IT expert told the tribunal it "just isn't possible" to edit a mobile phone note prior to the date it is consultant James Borwick said only a "catastrophic event" at Google would have resulted in the phone saying a note had been edited before being Borwick was hired by Ms Peggie's legal team to examine the phone records but denied he had been instructed to undermine Dr to explain screenshots highlighting the disparity between dates Mr Borwick said the "version history" of the phone notes appeared to have been added that he had attempted to recreate the same scenario with a phone and editing dates before creating them, but without told the panel "it's just not possible". The tribunal heard Dr Upton made additions to phone notes in the days after the Christmas Eve incident, including to a note from 18 December - the date Dr Upton has accused Ms Peggie of risking patient care with her stated "working nights, won't make eye contact, won't acknowledge my presence, haven't had direct conversation but can feel the dismissal/hostility" and was then added to in the early hours of 26 Russell KC, who represents NHS Fife and Dr Upton, suggested to Mr Borwick he had been instructed to produce evidence that Dr Upton was lying - a claim that prompted an immediate objection from Ms Peggie's legal Russell later questioned whether a comment in Mr Borwick's report saying Dr Upton was "silent on the matter" of phone notes was an "irresponsible accusation".He replied that, with hindsight, perhaps it Borwick said he had hoped to meet Dr Upton about the phone situation, but the meeting was cancelled by Ms Peggie's legal team. The tribunal will continue next week.
