Victory for sacked NHS secretary, 88, who sued for ageism
A HOSPITAL secretary frogmarched out of her office by security staff has become the oldest person to win an age discrimination case – at 88.
Eileen Jolly successfully sued the NHS Trust where she had worked for 25 years when her career was abruptly ended three years ago.
Colleagues had told bosses they were concerned about her “frailty” and age.
But the grandmother, who has a heart condition and walks with a stick, then took the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust to an employment tribunal.
She told the hearing in Reading in November that she had not taken a day off sick for 10 years, despite suffering a cardiac arrest at work.
Mrs Jolly, widowed last year, told the hearing she had planned to carry on working until she was at least 90.
The tribunal heard that she was escorted out of the hospital by security staff in September 2016 after being told to collect her things and leave. She overheard a colleague saying: “Eileen won’t be coming back.”
The medical secretary was accused of allowing 14 women needing breast surgery to wait more than a year for treatment.
Mrs Jolly, of Tilehurst, Berks, was blamed for not uploading details of patients to a new database.
But employment judge Andrew Gumbiti-Zimuto ruled this week that the Trust failed to train her in how to manage waiting lists. The tribunal heard that Mrs Jolly first started working for consultant Brendan Smith in 2005.
He described her work “reliable and meticulous”.
The judge said: “The claimant did not understand her role the way that her managers understood her role.
“The role that the claimant understood she was performing, she was performing competently.
“There is a suspicion of the claimant being a scapegoat.”
He said Mrs Jolly found the way she was axed as “humiliating”, adding: “She describes feeling degraded.”
Mrs Jolly had told the tribunal she felt depressed, ashamed and could not sleep.
A hearing to settle compensation is due to take place in October.
After details of the hearing were released, a spokesman for the NHS Trust said they had acknowledged the result and would be “considering their next steps”.
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