A nurse who was suspended over an alleged breach of a transgender patient’s confidentiality has been reinstated.<\/p>\n
Jennifer Melle from Croydon, south London, was removed from duty after speaking publicly to the media about receiving a warning for using the wrong pronouns.<\/p>\n
The trust said it was concerned confidential details about the patient’s appearance, diagnosis and treatment were shared with the media – but it found no evidence that the patient had been identified.<\/p>\n
An internal disciplinary meeting at Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust, where she worked, has now cleared her of further action.<\/p>\n
This hearing followed an incident in May 2024 where Melle was racially abused by a transgender patient after she addressed them as \u00ab\u00a0Mr\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
The trust issued her with a written warning, and separately warned the patient that racist and threatening behaviour would not be tolerated.<\/p>\n
An Epsom and St Helier Hospitals NHS spokesperson said they were pleased a member of staff who was previously suspended on full pay was being reinstated to clinical duties.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Racial abuse of our staff will never be tolerated and we are sorry that she had this experience.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Melle said she felt \u00ab\u00a0deeply relieved and grateful\u00a0\u00bb at the decision, following an \u00ab\u00a0incredibly long and painful journey\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Melle is taking the trust to an employment tribunal in April claiming harassment, direct discrimination and indirect discrimination linked to her gender\u2011critical and evangelical Christian beliefs.<\/p>\n
Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A nurse who was suspended over an alleged breach of a transgender patient’s confidentiality has been reinstated. Jennifer Melle from Croydon, south London, was removed from duty after speaking publicly to the media about receiving a warning for using the wrong pronouns. The trust said it was concerned confidential details about the patient’s appearance, diagnosis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}