The Department of Health and Social Care will be called to defend itself in a follow-up hearing.

It’s after panel members who heard Dr Rosalind Ranson’s employment tribunal cast doubt over the department’s handling of key documents.

The summary report following the unanimous decision that Dr Ranson was indeed unfairly dismissed states: ‘The tribunal members were left with knowledge that some documents had been destroyed (but not deliberately) and an uncomfortable feeling that others could still exist but remained undisclosed.’

Indeed, most of the documents which undermined the DHSC were not volunteered to Dr Ranson or her legal team as they should have been.

Dr Ranson’s lawyer, Oliver Segal QC, said that he could not be confident of whether the fault lay with the Chambers of the Attorney General or with Kathryn Magson, the former chief executive of the DHSC and the main target of Dr Ranson’s allegations.

In their report, the tribunal said: ‘Even allowing for the demanding challenges for the Attorney General’s Chambers in handling over 6,000 pages of documents, unfortunately, Dr Ranson is justified in feeling less than confident that, she or the tribunal, had all properly disclosable significant documentation.

The DHSC disclosed many documents at the 11th hour, and even some after the end of the tribunal proceedings themselves.

Mr Segal branded this an ‘ambush’ for Dr Ranson.

Several of the disclosures were astounding.

Only when in the witness box did Dr Henrietta Ewart produce an exchange of text messages held on her phone.

On February 18, 2022 - after the proceedings were concluded - the DHSC disclosed an exchange of emails dating back to August 2020 involving Testing Pathways.

This is significant as they ultimately cast doubt on the evidence that Miss Magson gave to the tribunal.

denies

The report states: ‘At face value, one email named Miss Magson as the person who had changed the Testing Pathway, something which she had denied.’

At the tribunal, in his closing statement on behalf of Dr Ranson, her lawyer, Mr Segal, alleged that minutes submitted to the tribunal by the DHSC from a meeting in 2020 were forged.

This file, among others is discussed in the final report.

At the subsequent disclosure hearing, the DHSC will be required to defend itself against various allegations of concocted documents.

Submissions will be required and sworn testimony is likely to be needed.

During two days in January allowed for cross-examination of deponents, Dr Ranson’s lawyer had pointed out that certain documents contained obvious material inaccuracies.

Accordingly, the chairman for the tribunal, Douglas Stewart, made an order on January 18, 2022, for metadata for various documents to be produced.

The metadata is telling.

One typed note of a meeting identified Dr Ranson as an attendee - not only did she not attend this meeting, but at the date of the meeting, Dr Ranson had not even been employed by the DHSC.

Another note referred to a meeting of the Senior Medical Leadership Team (SMLT).

That committee had not existed at the date of the note.

The committee had been created in the days after the date on the note.

Additionally, the template for that note had never been used until towards the end of March 2020.

The metadata produced for this particular document showed that it had only been created on January 20, 2022 – just four days before the employment tribunal itself began.

Another document purported to be minutes of a meeting which supposedly occurred via Microsoft Teams on March 16, 2020.

Microsoft Teams was not even being used by the DHSC at this time.

In his closing submissions, Mr Segal stated these types of forged documents amounted to ‘consequential prejudice’ to Dr Ranson.

The tribunal has essentially agreed.

In the report, they said: ‘But for a Document Subject Access Request (DSAR) made by Dr Ranson, many material documents that should have been disclosed as part of standard disclosure would never have been in evidence – leading to a risk of a serious miscarriage of justice.

‘That risk continued because of material late or non-disclosure.’

It also appears that evidence may have been destroyed by the DHSC.

communications

The tribunal report said: ‘It seemed clear to the panel members there must have been many more communications relevant to Dr Ranson’s case than ever surfaced These may have been text messages but many were likely to have been video-calls or chats on Teams. Any Teams meeting or call can be recorded for future viewing. The recording captures audio, video, and screen sharing activity, and can be securely shared.’

A date for the subsequent disclosure hearing has yet to be announced, with both sides now being called upon to agree its format.