A NURSE had his nearly three decade unblemished career ended when he was unfairly dismissed from Mid Essex Hospital NHS Trust for whisltleblowing, a tribunal has agreed.

Andrew Smith, who has spent the past four years fighting his dismissal from his job as an anaesthetics nurse at Broomfield Hospital, is set to receive damages and compensation from the trust at a separate hearing later this year.

In 2013 and 2014 Mr Smith, who was also an effective trade union representative steward for the Royal College of Nursing, raised a number of protected disclosures within the trust, including complaints around medication and patient care issues.

He also suggested that staff were being bullied and harassed by managers and not provided with adequate rest under the working time directives.

Whistleblowers are protected by law and should not be treated unfairly or lose their job because they ‘blow the whistle’ over concerns relating to certain types of wrongdoing that are in the public interest.

The NHS had argued that Mr Smith had been seen as a nuisance and a source of irritation and was guilty of gross misconduct following a breakdown in the relationship between employer and employee.

However, an appeal last month agreed with an initial judgement in Mr Smith’s favour at the beginning of the year that he had been dismissed for being a whistleblower on July 7 2015– a year after being suspended in July 2014.

His dismissal came three months after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust ‘required improvement’ overall.

In summary employment judge Martin Warren said: “The dismissal and appeal officers were very much aware of the protected disclosures and what a nuisance those disclosures had been, which is not to say the reason was the nuisance factor, it means as a whistleblower, he was a nuisance, and so they dismissed him because he was a whistleblower, because of the protected disclosures.

“We remain of the view that Mr Smith was dismissed because he made the protected disclosures.”

Mr Smith declined to comment ahead of a later remedy hearing.

The NHS Trust would not comment until proceedings conclude.

A spokesperson for Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust said: “Proceedings are not fully complete, with a forthcoming remedy hearing in October, and as such we cannot comment further at this time.”