A Belarusian NHS doctor who admitted she struggled with small talk and “could not understand the British fascination with the weather” has lost a £100,000 unfair dismissal case after an employment tribunal found she was legitimately sacked for failing to meet communication standards required of a consultant anaesthetist.
Dr Maryna Anatolyeva, 47, was removed from a postgraduate anaesthetics training programme at St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust in October 2022 after repeated concerns about her communication, leadership and teamworking skills. Her claim that she had been treated unfairly was rejected by Employment Judge Callum Cowx, who found she “failed to meet the standard required to complete a long and highly demanding training programme.”
The tribunal heard that Dr Anatolyeva herself acknowledged finding certain social interactions difficult. “She did not find it easy to engage in ‘small talk’ and could not understand the British fascination with the weather,” an earlier tribunal in Manchester was told, with Dr Anatolyeva suggesting the difficulty may be cultural — explaining that people did not chat about such topics when she was growing up in Belarus.
Multiple experienced consultants at the trust raised concerns about her non-technical skills throughout her training period between August 2018 and August 2022. Issues with communication were flagged at an appraisal in July 2021. A further assessment in January 2022 again identified these skills as needing improvement. She was warned in July 2022 that failure to improve would result in her removal from the programme, and she was dropped from it three months later after being unable to meet the required standards.
The tribunal acknowledged she had received positive feedback from supervising consultants on several occasions, but found a “pervasive theme” of negative feedback relating to communication, leadership and teamworking running through multiple assessments. Judge Cowx noted that non-technical skills including communication, leadership, teamwork and situational awareness were of “vital importance” in the emergency, critical care and surgical environments in which consultant anaesthetists routinely work.
Dr Anatolyeva had argued she was treated less favourably because of her race — as a Russian-speaking person from Belarus — and because of neurodiversity. Both claims were dismissed at an earlier stage of proceedings. She also claimed her female supervisor told her that being a consultant was not “suitable” for her because she was a single mother from a different cultural background. The supervisor “emphatically denied” making any such comment, and the tribunal found her account more persuasive than Dr Anatolyeva’s — particularly after the doctor admitted the supervisor “would not have made the comment directly, but it is how she interpreted what she meant.”
All of Dr Anatolyeva’s claims were dismissed.
