The thorny issue of employment status is one that tends to come back before tribunals for rulings again and again. Without doubt there is a need for a more definite system for deciding this, and a recent case concerning an out of hours GP has, once again, highlighted that.
Dr Narayan was working as an out of hours GP for Community Based Care Health in Gateshead. She was not obliged to accept work, the company was not obliged to offer any, and she could take holiday to suit herself. Her accountant advised her to set up a limited company, RNJ Medical Services, and through that she also received payments from a locum agency for which she worked that were treated as self-employed.
Following some issues Community Based Care Health stopped offering her work, whereon she brought a claim to the North Shields employment tribunal in 2017 for unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal, race and sex discrimination, and unpaid holiday pay. The judge dismissed the claims of unfair dismissal and wrongful dismissal on the grounds that she had not been an ‘employee’. However, on the bases that she was required to perform her work personally, that she was required to have her own professional indemnity insurance, and that the company provided her with the required drugs, she was considered to be a ‘worker’ and, therefore, entitled to claim for holiday pay and sex and race discrimination.
Community Based Care Health took the matter to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) arguing that at the point in October 2015 that she set up her limited company she ceased to be a worker and her company became a contracting party. The EAT’s disagreed with this as a company is not a human doctor and cannot, therefore, treat a patient or exercise medical judgment.
Community Based Care Health’s further argument that the Tribunal’s ruling was at odds with that in another case was also dismissed as the circumstances were fundamentally different.
What has been highlighted most clearly by this matter is just how complicated it can become to determine self-employed status when an individual has had a long and integrated working relationship with an organisation. At present there is little alternative to judging each individual case on its own merits.
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