A disabled cleaner who was off sick for more than 400 days in four years was unfairly sacked from her job at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, a tribunal has ruled.
Zoe Kitching took sick leave for a total of 406 days between 2019 and 2023. The cleaner, who had bipolar disorder, had “complex issues” including anxiety and depression and argued that her absences were due to a disability.
At a disciplinary meeting in June 2023, when she was dismissed by Divisional Manager of Facilities David Passant, hospital bosses highlighted that Ms Kitching had been off sick for 113 days in the previous 12 months. She was sacked “because of the totality of the… historic absences from the start of her employment in 2019 to 27 June 2023”.
Ms Kitching continued to work as ‘bank staff’ until August 2023 with no absences in the period since her dismissal. She appealed the dismissal but was unsuccessful and subsequently brought an employment tribunal claim against the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust which runs the Royal Lancaster Infirmary.
The tribunal’s ruling, published last month, concluded that it had been ‘”irrational and wrong” to deny Ms Kitching of her disability status, adding that she should have been given more sick leave.
Employment Judge Childe said the panel was “particularly surprised” that one NHS boss insisted Ms Kitching was not disabled and added: “We find that the respondent did not act reasonably in treating that as a sufficient reason for dismissing the claimant in the circumstances.
“At no time during the dismissal meeting or appeal meeting did the respondent agree that the claimant was a disabled person, which led to an unfair and fundamentally flawed and discriminatory decision to dismiss the claimant.”
The tribunal ruled that the complaint of failure to make reasonable adjustments for disability is well founded and succeed, the complaint of unfair dismissal is well-founded, the claimant was unfairly dismissed, there is no chance that the claimant would have been fairly dismissed in any event and the complaint of unfavourable treatment because of something arising in consequence of disability is well-founded and succeeds.
The tribunal judgement said: “The claimant was extremely upset by the decision to dismiss her and the refusal of Mr Passant to recognise that the claimant was a disabled person as defined under the Equality Act 2010.
“The claimant asked for another chance and explained that her absences had been due to mental health. The claimant said it was unnecessary for her to lose her job.
“The claimant was extremely upset after the decision was taken at appeal not to overturn the original decision to dismiss. We’ve accepted the claimant’s evidence that she felt that she had been dismissed twice.”
Alison Balson, Chief People Officer at UHMBT, said: “We respect the findings of the tribunal and will look at what lessons can be learned. We want to apologise to Ms Kitching for any distress caused.”
Subscribe to our daily newsletter LANCS LIVE NEWS and get all the biggest stories from across Lancashire direct to your inbox