Chief executive of the trust, Steve Russell, has said that while he wasn’t in the role at the time of the enquiry or tribunal, he admitted: “We did not listen closely enough to every perspective or try hard enough to resolve the issues.”
In June, it was revealed that the Darlington nurses involved in the tribunal had been awarded £187,000 in damages.
Nurses from Darlington Memorial Hospital are surrounded by supporters, as they arrive at the Civil (Image: Tom Wilkinson)
The payout followed their employment tribunal victory, when a panel found the trust had subjected the nurses to harassment and indirect sex discrimination over its handling of concerns about a transgender colleague using female changing facilities.
In a meeting with The Northern Echo, Mr Russell has identified what the trust has done to rectify the issues after the judgement and has expressed several regrets about how the situation was handled.
He said: “After the judgment was published, we updated our policies and arrangements so that people use changing facilities reflecting their biological sex, in compliance with the law and judgment.
“We have introduced additional single, lockable facilities for staff who want to use them.
The Northern Echo interview CEO of the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, Steve Russell (Image: Chris Booth/NORTHERN ECHO)
“Although the policy and practice are that people use single-sex areas according to biological sex, we need to improve changing facilities across the trust.
“The facilities are not as good as they should be, but single sex means biological sex.”
The case was brought by seven nurses at Darlington Memorial Hospital: Bethany Hutchison, Lisa Lockey, Karen Danson, Tracy Hooper, Annice Grundy, Carly Hoy and Jane Peveller.
The dispute centred on the Ttust’s policy of allowing transgender colleague Rose Henderson, who was born male but identifies as a woman, to use the female staff changing room.
Transgender nurse Rose Henderson. (Image: NORTH NEWS)
The employment tribunal found the trust had unlawfully required the nurses to share a changing room with a biological male trans woman without providing a suitable alternative.
However, the tribunal also made clear Ms Henderson was not personally to blame for the situation and dismissed allegations of harassment against her personally.
The £187,000 damages figure is separate to the trust’s own legal costs, which it said to stand at around £603,000.
Mr Russell admitted that the case “slightly predates me. When I joined, the tribunal was about to take place.”
But added that “I think colleagues became slightly entrenched in their views.”
Nurses (left to right) Carly Hoy, Lisa Lockey, Bethany Hutchison, Karen Danson, Annice Grundy and Jane Peveller (Image: Owen Humphreys)
He said: “It is easy to comment with hindsight, particularly when you were not there, but as we have publicly acknowledged, I do not think we handled it as well as we should have.
“We did not listen closely enough to every perspective or try hard enough to resolve the issues. People raised legitimate points that could and should have been handled differently.
“The trust’s policy before the Supreme Court judgment was the same as that of most NHS organisations because it reflected the legal interpretation at the time.
“Despite that, colleagues’ concerns should have been heard more closely and alternative options considered.
“The Supreme Court later changed the legal position, by which point the trust was many months into the process.”
“I think colleagues became slightly entrenched in their views.”