Sex Discrimination

Jon Loney, an employment lawyer at Foot Anstey highlights the latest case of sex discrimination

This month a former male nurse won a case of Sex Discrimination against an NHS trust who refused to allow him to carry out routine procedures on female patients without a chaperone. The nurse, Andrew Moyning felt he was not performing his job properly and so gave up nursing as a career.

The NHS trust required Mr Moyning to have a female chaperone present when he carried out certain procedures on female patients. The reverse was not true for female nurses who did not have male chaperones present when conducting the same procedures on male patients.

Mr Moyning argued that he felt his employers thought he was untrustworthy and it so it made him embarrassed to treat female patients.

His case was not successful in the Employment Tribunal but the original decision was overturned by the Employment Appeals Tribunal who decided that his reaction was not unreasonable. They found the policy of different treatment of male nursing trainees did constitute Sex discrimination under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.

Mr Moyning was only awarded £750 but Sex Discrimination claims have no limit in the Employment Tribunal and can prove costly for employers. The average compensation awarded by the Tribunal in sex discrimination cases in 2005 was £14,158.

What can employers do to protect themselves from the claims ?

The first step is an effective Equal Opportunities policy clearly stating your commitment not to discriminate against employees on the grounds of sex, race, religion, sexual orientation and age. Employees discriminating against any fellow employees will not be tolerated and there should also be a separate detailed policy dealing with harassment.

Employees need to understand what the policy means in practice. You need to train existing and new employees on a regular basis and keep a record of this training. All policies must be easily accessible to your employees.

Employees need to understand that there is a clear grievance procedure if they want to make a complaint about discrimination. Any grievance involving discrimination or harassment needs to be investigated thoroughly by the employer.

Unequal pay rates for men and women can also lead to claims, so an audit of current salaries and benefits should be conducted to ensure that any differences in pay or benefits cannot be attributed to discriminatory policies or practice.

Finally, the Sex Discrimination Act applies to job applicants as well as current employees. When recruiting or promoting employees a clear job specification and checklist should be used to assess each candidate on an objective basis.