Contract did not allow increase in sanction

In McMillan v Airedale NHS Foundation Trust the Court of Appeal has upheld a High Court decision that a contractual disciplinary procedure could not be interpreted as allowing the employer to increase a sanction from a written warning to dismissal when the employee, who was a doctor, appealed against the written warning. The Court of Appeal considered that implying such a power would be inconsistent with the right of appeal which was intended to benefit the employee, not for him to risk being worse off. The employee was therefore granted a permanent injunction preventing the employer from reconsidering the disciplinary sanction on appeal.