Bladon v ALM Medical Services Ltd (Manchester Employment Tribunal, IRLB 648)
Elderly people in residential care homes are among the most vulnerable in our society.
A Tribunal in Manchester, in one of the first whistle blowing decisions has shown it is prepared to be robust when interpreting the legislation to protect those workers who are brave enough to report their concern.
In 1999 Brian Bladon, an experienced charge nurse, started work for ALM Medical Services Limited at Lowther View Nursing Home in Lytham, Lancashire. He was soon asked to "act up" into a senior role.
Almost immediately he became very concerned about a number of issues in relation to the residents' care. These included issues of physical and verbal abuse of residents, failure to complete drug records, failure to order necessary drugs and a failure of a residents wound to be properly treated.
Mr Bladon raised his concerns by telephone with a personal assistant to the owner of the home. He was asked to put his comments in writing which he did.
Mr Bladon received no reply to his concerns at all. He became increasingly worried. He therefore telephoned the local authority and spoke to the Social Services Inspectorate who then took responsibility for the matter. They carried out an inspection which upheld many of Mr Bladon's concerns.
Meanwhile Mr Bladon was summoned to a disciplinary hearing where he was given a final written warning. He was then sacked one week later. The reason given for his dismissal was that he was "not acting with the company's best interests at heart". He was denied an appeal against his dismissal.
As Mr Bladon had less than one year's service he had to establish that the decision to dismiss him was made because he had made a protected disclosure under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998.
The Tribunal was satisfied that both Mr Bladon's complaint to his employer and to the Social Services and Health Services Inspectorate were qualifying and protected disclosures.
The Tribunal also found he suffered a detriment as a result of his protected disclosures - both the written warning he received and the lack of opportunity for an appeal against his dismissal. Most importantly, they also considered that the reason for his dismissal was the protected disclosure he had made and that his dismissal was automatically unfair.
At the remedy hearing, the Tribunal decided it had power to make an award for both injury to feelings and an award for aggravated damages for the detriment, in addition to his compensation for dismissal. This was a positive and imaginative interpretation of the act.
The Tribunal awarded £10,000 injury to feelings to include aggravated damages plus loss of earnings including interest of £13,075 The total compensation was therefore £23,075
The Tribunal took into account that the applicant had been employed in various positions in the health service for 20 years, with an unblemished record when he was dismissed. He was both shocked and distressed by the termination of his employment.
This case shows that the Tribunal was prepared to send a clear signal to employers who sack employees when they whistleblow on poor standards of care and was not prepared to tolerate such behaviour.