Dr Neeraj Nirmal v Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Injunctions restraining an employment disciplinary process are exceptional. The court should intervene for a contractual breach or procedural unfairness only where the defect is sufficiently serious and cannot be remedied within the process. The court must avoid micro-management.

An employer generally decides whether alleged misconduct should proceed under its disciplinary procedure or an educational training route, subject to the employment contract and applicable standards. A requirement that allegations should initially be considered as a training issue does not make that route mandatory. A doctor has a right to legal representation at a disciplinary hearing, but no automatic right to require complainants to give live evidence or be cross-examined. That question remains one of fairness and reasonableness for the disciplinary panel.

The claimant, an ST5 trainee doctor, sought to restrain the defendant NHS trust from conducting a potential gross-misconduct hearing. An ex parte injunction had been granted urgently on 3 March 2026 and prevented the hearing listed for the following day.

He alleged that the complaints should initially have been dealt with through the educational supervision route, that the trust’s process denied legal representation, and that complainant witnesses would not be called for cross-examination. The claim was principally pleaded as a contractual challenge to the choice of disciplinary route. The return hearing concerned whether the ex parte application was procedurally proper, whether there was a serious issue to be tried, and whether the injunction should continue.

1. The injunction was discharged. The application should ordinarily have been served. The urgency of the disciplinary hearing did not amount to a good reason for failing to serve the application and supporting evidence on the day of issue. The claimant had not, however, failed to make full and frank disclosure.
2. The pleaded challenge to the choice of procedure did not disclose a serious issue to be tried. Applying [2003] UKHL 27, the trust was entitled to decide the disciplinary route, subject to the contract. The national MHPS wording that allegations in relation to a doctor in training “should be considered initially as a training issue” was not equivalent to a mandatory requirement. The trust had considered the training route with HEE before choosing its own disciplinary process. Some allegations, including serious or repeated sexual harassment, might properly be dealt with as misconduct rather than training, although the ultimate characterisation of gross misconduct was a question of law and fact for the panel.
3. Damages would not be an adequate remedy because the claimant’s career was at stake. That factor did not determine the application because the serious-issue threshold was not met.
4. Under [2014] 1 All ER 943 and [2014] EWHC 2535, the court may restrain a disciplinary process where serious contractual or procedural defects make its continuation unfair and the defects cannot be remedied within the process. The court must not micro-manage disciplinary proceedings.
5. The defendant accepted that the claimant could be represented by lawyers, consistently with [2009] EWCA Civ 789. There was no automatic right to require complainants to attend and be cross-examined. Under [1989] IRLR 251, the decision whether witnesses should be called is ordinarily a management decision governed by fairness and reasonableness. The panel should consider any explained request to call witnesses and give reasons for its decision, particularly where disputed factual issues are central.
6. The court refused to determine the newly raised, unsupported health-related allegation. The claimant’s request for a stay was also refused because no proper application or supporting evidence had been filed. No order for costs was made.