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Uncaring Comments About Disability Can Amount to Discrimination - Primary Care

on Monday, 09 May 2016.

An employment tribunal has held that telling an employee with depression that “everyone gets depressed sometimes, you just have to pull yourself together” amounted to discrimination arising from disability.

The Facts

Ms Wickers was an optical assistant at Specsavers who had received informal and formal warnings for lateness, had made a dispensing error and had failed to follow her employer's absence notification procedure.

When she was diagnosed with depression, she told a director, but received an unsympathetic and dismissive response. 'Everyone gets depressed sometimes,' he said. 'You just have to pull yourself together”.

After this encounter, Ms Wickers was absent from work on a number of occasions, made another dispensing error and was again late for work having overslept (due, apparently, to the effect her depression medication had on her sleep). Ms Wickers informed the director that she was on medication for her depression, but despite this he commenced disciplinary action and informed her that this was likely to lead to her dismissal. So Ms Wickers resigned.

The Tribunal's Decision

An employment tribunal upheld her claims for discrimination arising from disability, failure to make reasonable adjustments and harassment, stating 'the suggestion that a person with depression should just 'pull yourself together' is humiliating and offensive'.

Best Practice

It is advisable for Practices to have an equal opportunities policy in place which is made available to all staff, in order to set minimum standards of behaviour in this respect. Practices should also provide appropriate training on the policy seeking to reduce the risk of discriminatory conduct taking place in the workplace for which the Practice will be liable.


For more information, please contact Nick Murrell in our Employment Law team on 0117 314 5627.