A NURSE has been awarded a £41,000 payout after she was left out of the morning tea round by a colleague.
Susan Hamilton had accused dietitian Abdool Nayeck of bullying her while working together at St Helier Hospital in Sutton, South London.
She claimed Nayeck would ignore her morning greetings and “stopped making tea for her when he was making it for all other team members”.
Susan, who qualified as an NHS nurse in 1986, also accused the medic of looking the other way when she spoken in meetings.
She took Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust to an employment tribunal citing a breach of contract … due to a total breakdown of trust and confidence”.
Employment Judge Kathryn Ramsden concluded the trust had failed to take “adequate action” over Nayeck’s behaviour.
As a result, Susan was awarded £41,000 in compensation.
The court heard that Susan had joined the trust as a diabetes specialist nurse in October 2012, and Nayeck joined her team five years later.
In 2018, the working relationship took a turn when Susan questioned his “competency” following a row over how to handle a patient.
She told how after the disagreement, Nayeck became “noticeably dismissive” towards her.
Bosses had been called to deal with the conflict between the pair, where Nayeck “bluntly” told his colleague: “I don’t like you”.
Despite this, the pair agreed to be “polite” to each other and signed a document to this affect in 2019.
But Susan claimed the “only change” he made was to refuse to make tea for anyone, not just her.
She said: “The only change that occurred from [Nayeck’s] side is that he no longer made drinks for the team in the morning so by extension I was no longer specifically excluded in that regard.”
Susan was signed off work with stress but returned in January 2021 where she raised a formal grievance against Nayeck and the trust’s handling of her concerns.
She resigned a year later and accused her colleague of abuse, which was dismissed.
Susan appealed the decision and it was upheld by the hospital, which acknowledged the “impact” the previous outcome had on her “wellbeing”.
