Male NHS nurse wins sex discrimination case after female colleague tells him to 'man up' in room full of women
23 August 2023, 19:36 | Updated: 23 August 2023, 19:40
A male nurse in the NHS has won a sex discrimination case after being told to "man up" by a female colleague.
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Lisa Sanchez, a senior manager in the health service, deliberately excluded Pete Marsh when leaving a meeting, saying "goodbye ladies", a tribunal found.
Mr Marsh, who has worked in the NHS for 20 years, said he was fed up of being the butt of jokes in meetings, he told the employment tribunal.
He first made internal complaints about his treatment, which came to nothing, before bringing an external tribunal against the health service.
Mr Marsh, a Unite trade union representative, won his case and is set to get compensation. The amount will be set a later meeting.
The nurse worked Manchester University NHS Trust in the Cheetham and Crumpsall team.
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In 2018, he was involved in a workplace dispute with a female colleague, after she ignored a request to help her.
Ms Sanchez mediated the dispute, and Mr Marsh felt she sided with the colleague over him. He emailed Ms Sanchez afterwards to let her know, which "irritated" her.
At a meeting, she asked in an "aggressive and confrontational" style which team members were part of "Pete's Union".
The panel found that "Ms Sanchez' approach was intentionally divisive and intimidatory. The implication was that staff were to be seen as either in Pete's Union or not, and became about taking sides."
A 2019 meeting about low staff morale descended into an angry argument between Ms Sanchez and Mr Marsh. He was the only man in the room, with ten women.
The hearing was told: "The atmosphere in the meeting became tense. There was a five-minute break after which the discussion got out of hand, with most team members involved.
"[Mr Marsh] complained he was being blanked. Ms Sanchez declared that the behaviour of the team was "childish" and needed to stop and that the team needed to adopt professional behaviour and to respect Trust values.
"Ms Sanchez also said that people could only speak when spoken to. [Mr Marsh] objected to this and went to leave the meeting, saying Ms Sanchez needed to sort herself out.
"In reply, Ms Sanchez said, 'you need to man up'.
The tribunal rules that this constituted an attack on Mr Marsh, and found in favour for several of his claims.
"The tribunal considered that her remark was said in heat of the moment and was unprofessional. Ms Sanchez lost her temper and should have closed the meeting rather than attack [Mr Marsh] verbally as she did."
"The tribunal accepted [his] evidence that he had often been the butt of jokes or remarks about being the only man in the team or about his sex.
"He gave evidence that such comments were at time innocuous but he had grown tired of them and was on occasion irritated by the fact that his sex was highlighted unnecessarily.
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"The tribunal found that this culture, and approach to [Mr Marsh] was tolerated by his immediate management who took no steps to deter [his] colleagues and Ms Sanchez herself has been shown to have participated in such commentary."
The "man up" remark was unprofessional and "less favourable treatment", the tribunal ruled.
Addressing the "Goodbye ladies" incident, the tribunal said: "At best this might be a thoughtless comment but for a senior and experienced manager in the NHS, the tribunal would expect better.
"In the context of Ms Sanchez's developing animus towards [Mr Marsh], the tribunal found she was well aware of his presence at the time of her comment.
"In those circumstances, the tribunal considered on a balance of probabilities that Ms Sanchez had said 'Ladies' and that it was deliberate.
"In reaching this conclusion, the tribunal took into account that the incident came after the mediation, which Ms Sanchez believed had gone well. However, [Mr Marsh] did not agree.
"He remained unhappy and had complained, which then irritated Ms Sanchez. She acted to [Mr Marsh's detriment] and treated him less favourably because of his gender, excluding him by her remark upon leaving."
