Hospital 'racially discriminated' against engineer

One out of Subramaniam Ahillan's 35 complaints was upheld by the employment tribunal

An NHS hospital trust racially discriminated against an engineer when he was suspended over a health and safety breach, an employment tribunal ruled.

Subramaniam Ahillan, who is of Sri Lankan heritage, was part of a team installing medical gas pipe work at Basildon University Hospital in Essex in April 2020.

The claimant had been suspended over allegations he entered false information on paperwork.

The Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust pointed out that Mr Ahillan's claim of "direct race discrimination" was the only one of 35 allegations upheld by the tribunal judge.

The tribunal hearing concluded in March and a judgement was published on Wednesday.

Judge David Brannan concluded that Mr Ahillan was treated in a "materially different way" to a second colleague.

"We have significant sympathy with [Mr Ahillan] because [of] the allegation he made on 20 April 2020, that he was singled out despite doing the same thing as a colleague had done," said Mr Brannan.

Contractors were installing new infrastructure at Basildon University Hospital in order to increase capacity during the Covid-19 pandemic

The panel heard workers from Aether Medical Gases Limited were installing the infrastructure in a day surgery unit at Basildon to increase capacity for Covid-19 patients.

A fire alarm was set off by a contractor and the trust said this was because Mr Ahillan did not install caps on the detectors, despite declaring in a risk assessment form that he had.

He was suspended, but the tribunal heard his colleague - also accused of not documenting information on a risk assessment and therefore creating a fire risk - was not suspended.

The tribunal was also told Mr Ahillan's line manager was part of a WhatsApp group that contained - according to oral evidence - "racist material".

Mr Brannan said the manager resigned while being investigated.

"This raises issues about his motivations as well as giving context to the workplace," he added.

'Improve awareness'

A spokesperson for the hospital trust said: "Race discrimination is something the trust takes extremely seriously and we are reassured that the tribunal did not make a finding that any person within the trust was racist.

"Out of 35 allegations made, only one was upheld, with the others being dismissed.

"This finding was made on an inference and was not found to be discrimination caused by any one specific individual.

"However, we are taking learning on board from this case and improving awareness around race discrimination."

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