Barts and the London NHS Trust v Verma

Summary

Easter Term
[2013] UKSC 20
On appeal from: [2011] EWCA Civ 1129

JUDGMENT

Barts and the London NHS Trust (Respondent) v Verma (Appellant)

before

Lord Hope, Deputy President
Lord Walker
Lady Hale
Lord Sumption
Lord Carnwath

JUDGMENT GIVEN ON

24 April 2013

Heard on 27 February 2013

Appellant Karon Monaghan QC Edward Kemp (Instructed by Darbys Solicitors LLP)		Respondent David Welch Stephen Page (Instructed by Alexander Chambers)

		Intervener Frederic Reynold QC Nadia Motraghi (Instructed by Bevan Brittan LLP)

LORD CARNWATH (with whom Lord Hope, Lord Walker, Lady Hale and Lord Sumption agree)

Dr Verma is a doctor specialising in oral and maxillo-facial surgery. She trained as a dentist in India but later qualified as a doctor. She has been working in the United Kingdom since 1996. She worked in training grade posts from March 1998 until August 2002. From September 2002 to September 2006 she held a series of locum positions in career grade posts, two of them at Specialist Registrar level. In November 2006 she took a six-month appointment with the Luton and Dunstable Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. That appointment was described in the appointment letter as "Trust grade doctor in oral surgery (Hospital Practitioner equivalent) for two sessions per week". She left that post in early 2007. She was then offered a post as a "Foundation Year 1 Pre-Registration House Officer" with the respondent ("the Trust"). This is a training post, typically for newly-qualified doctors, but sometimes for more senior doctors who need further training. For Dr Verma it was a necessary step to her qualifying for an appointment as a consultant, having originally trained as a dentist.

The contractual terms

The relevant contractual terms are in the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service for Hospital Medical and Dental Staff and Doctors in Public Health Medicine and the Community Health Service (England and Wales), which came into force in September 2002. They were promulgated by the Secretary of State but represented the outcome of negotiations with representatives of the medical and dental professions. (Revised terms, which included revised pay protection arrangements, came into force on 1st August 2007, but do not apply to Dr Verma's contract which took effect from 31st July 2007.)

Paragraph 1 (a) provides that "practitioners shall be paid at the rates set out in Appendix I". That in turn refers to the latest "Advance Letter" (otherwise referred to as the "Pay Circular"). A fresh Pay Circular is issued each year. Annex A is headed "Basic rates of pay per annum" effective from 1 April in each year. It consists of a schedule setting out figures for each of fifteen grades, the highest being "Consultant (pre-2003 contract) and the lowest "Hospital practitioners". For each grade there is a series of levels of pay running from "Min" and then from 1 to 13, though the number of levels varies from grade to grade. It is common ground that these levels correspond to the "incremental points" referred to in the terms and conditions. For all grades…

JUDGMENT