\n Vicky Russ had accused Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) leaders of carrying out a redundancy process \u201cdesigned to remove her\u201d during late 2024.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, a hearing held earlier this year ruled she did not have the skillset to meet the trust\u2019s criteria for the new roles in its restructuring process – a move prompted after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated it \u201crequires improvement\u201d the previous year.\n<\/p>\n
\n The trust aimed to overcome \u201cchronic underperformance\u201d and wanted people in senior positions to have clinical operational experience, which Ms Russ did not have.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms Russ, left, was employed by the trust from October 2020 until April 2025 (Image: NSFT)\n<\/p>\n
\n The employment tribunal was held in Norwich between March 9 and March 11, with the results of the decision published this month.\n<\/p>\n
\n The ruling reads: \u201cThe claimant queried the need for clinical experience, when in comparable national roles it was not a requirement, and was told it was because of the lack of cohesion to date and the objective of having a team which was clinically and operationally strong.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Despite that, the former head of service development and transformation did not believe her role was in danger as she thought her job title was listed in the proposed restructure.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms Russ \u2013 who was one of nine people made redundant in the process – applied for four jobs in the new set up but was not offered any of them.\n<\/p>\n
\n In the ruling, Judge S. Moore said an \u201cemployer cannot reasonably be expected to appoint a candidate to a role who performs significantly worse at interview than other candidates or who fails to meet a minimum threshold, even if the candidate in question is at risk of being made redundant\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms Russ was also not shortlisted for another role because she did not have clinical experience.\n<\/p>\n
\n Following her dismissal in April 2025, she described the process as a \u201csham\u201d, accusing the trust of ringfencing roles so she could not apply for them and sidelining her work to be taken on by a consultant.\n<\/p>\n
\n She said there had been no reduction in the requirements for her role as set out by the trust.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, the judge said that given the roles Ms Russ was applying for required her to have clinical experience, it was a \u201csubstantial and potentially fair reason\u201d for dismissal.\n<\/p>\n
\n The judge added there was \u201cno evidence that the redundancy process was a sham\u201d or that it was designed to get rid of her.\n<\/p>\n
\n According to LinkedIn, Ms Russ is the managing director of Norwich-based VR Leadership Coaching and describes herself as a redundancy and leadership coach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vicky Russ had accused Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) leaders of carrying out a redundancy process…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-616799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}