Summary below reproduced from Lord Fairley's judgment

The claimant was employed by the respondent as a National Sales Manager from 16 March 2022. She was dismissed with immediate effect on 8 September 2022 with a payment of one week’s wages in lieu of notice. The stated reason for dismissal was poor performance. The claimant complained to the Employment Tribunal that she had been automatically unfairly dismissed and subjected to detriment for making protected disclosures. She relied upon three separate alleged disclosures. Having heard evidence, the Tribunal found that the claimant had not made the first disclosure, and that the second and third disclosures did not qualify for protection. The claimant appealed only against the decision that the third disclosure was not protected. The third disclosure was a statement that the respondent that did not have written contracts in place with some of its Dispensing Appliance Contractors (“DACs”) and that this was putting the health and safety of end users at risk and that such risk had been or was likely to be deliberately concealed.

Held:

(1) The extent of the information given by the claimant to the respondent was simply that there were missing DCA contracts. That provision of information was combined with an unexplained and unspecified general assertion that the absence of DCA contracts was putting the health and safety of patients at risk. The Tribunal was entitled to conclude that mere general assertion of a health and safety risk was not enough to qualify as a disclosure of “information”.

(2) In any event, the Tribunal was also entitled to conclude, on the evidence, that any belief the claimant may have had that there was a connection between DCA contracts and the health and safety of end users of the product was not a reasonable one for someone in the claimant’s position and with her state of knowledge to have held. The appeal was therefore dismissed.