An Upper Tribunal judgment on a urologist’s IR35 status gets the ‘interesting’ treatment. A contractor urologist was correct to say…
An Upper Tribunal judgment on a urologist’s IR35 status gets the ‘interesting’ treatment.
A contractor urologist was correct to say a court made mistakes assessing his IR35 status, but wrong to say he should be outside IR35 as a result.
It’s not the first time that the urologist, George Mantides, who the Upper Tribunal (UT) has now handed down as being inside IR35, has had a pyrrhic victory.
In July 2019, the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) ruled George Mantides Ltd as ‘outside IR35’ at Medway Maritime Hospital (MMH), but ‘inside IR35’ at Royal Berkshire Hospital (RBH).
The UT revealed on April 7th 2025 that two of the four grounds of appeal that Mantides made in April 2021 against the FTT’s ‘RBH’ decision were satisfied.
Therefore, Mantides was right to contest the FTT’s 2019 “findings of fact” over his IR35 status at RBH from March to August 2013, as the FTT made “errors”.
But shown by Kingsbridge the UT’s ruling with these findings and which goes against Mantides (his two other grounds failed), IR35 experts didn’t even extrapolate the two satisfied grounds.
And yesterday, the experts, who included a former general secretary to the Independent Health Professionals Association (IHPA), implied that it’s not because Mantides lost that his areas of success at the hearing seem immaterial.
Rather, it’s because the FTT’s “errors” and the delay between the UT’s decision (April 2021) and its unveiling (April 2025), combine, to vastly limit the application of the UT’s judgment.
Matt Tyler is Kingsbridge’s resident IR35 expert, and he’s forced to the same conclusion about an IR35 case with working practices dating back more than a decade.
“George Mantides has unfortunately been placed in the unenviable position of having a protracted – to say the least – IR35 enquiry and appeal timeline.
“And that may have contributed to his appeal resulting in the Upper Tribunal [remaking the FTT’s decision but retaining its]…inside IR35 determination.”
Kingsbridge’s IR35 Consultancy Manager, Tyler added: “Twelve years is staggering. The stress and uncertainty must have been almost impossible to endure.
“But it’s difficult to say that had things progressed a little quicker, whether the outcome for this freelance urologist would have been different.
“The delay was partly because the UT wanted to keep back its ruling until ‘PGMOL.’ But such a fact, and wondering if delay partly undid his chances, won’t comfort Mantides now.”
Stephen Mhiribidi is a locum radiographer who was previously Head of Legal at the IHPA.
He also notes that the UT delayed its decision pending the outcome of HMRC v Professional Game Match Referees Ltd.
“While the ruling waited for the PGMOL decision, it is my view that the UT remade the decision based on all the material facts of the RBH contract rather than purely on the facts of PGMOL.”
Mr Mhiribidi also told Kingsbridge: “The UT set aside the FTT [ruling], as it concurred with…[Mantides] that there were errors in law on grounds 1 and 2.
“But these errors were not sufficient to simply deem the RBH contract as that of self-employment.”
Dr Iain Campbell, the association’s former general secretary, says the FTT’s errors had only the potential to be significant.
“The Upper Tribunal has found that there had indeed been errors in law; errors it acknowledged could have resulted in a different decision being reached.
“But its ruling published on April 7th 2025 shows that in 2011 it rejected arguments concerning the similarity of [Mantides’] RBH contract to another contract.
“And this other contract [the MMH contract] was previously found to be a self-employment contract.”
Fresh from clinical work, Dr Campbell further reflected yesterday afternoon: “Ultimately, the UT remade the decision…viewing the overall picture…as one of employment.
“While it was hoped that this case would set a useful binding precedent for other freelance healthcare workers in similar situations, many of the factors were found only to be weak steers in either direction.
“Consequently, I would think it unlikely this judgment will significantly impact what are highly nuanced decisions, needing to be considered in the round.”
The IHPA’s ex-Deputy Head of Legal, Dr Campbell reiterated: “Essentially, the status quo prior to the appeal remains unchanged.
“And I doubt this judgment will give too much useful precedent for either side.”
Chartergates, a law firm, last week prepared a broadly similar ‘bottom-line’ analysis.
In an update, the firm said of the Mantides case:
“The fact that this matter has taken so long to reach a conclusion lowers its precedent value considerably, as does the fact that the FTT have been found to have made material errors.
“Whenever there is a new IR35 judgment, there is understandably a rush to attempt to extrapolate the key points and take them forward.
“This judgment [from the Upper Tribunal] comes with huge limitations when trying to conduct such an exercise.
“The fact that this matter has been litigated for over a decade renders it very difficult to place stock in its precedence value, mainly because over that decade the caselaw on IR35 has changed considerably.”
IR35 contract reviewer Charlie Hemsworth confirmed last night in a statement to Kingsbridge:
“What makes the Mantides case stand out is how it played out during major shifts in case law.
“The appeal to the UT of his limited company, George Mantides Ltd, was centred around Mutuality, and challenged the FTT’s 2019 decision.”
“Well, that was long before two landmark IR35 rulings. Most recently PGMOL, and then beforehand, in Atholl House Productions – the Kaye Adams case.”
A director at Bauer & Cottrell, Hemsworth continued: “As a result, the Mantides case was overtaken by evolving precedent. And the wait for the Supreme Court’s judgment in PGMOL delayed the appeal process by several years.”
Having previously helped coordinate Mantides’ online campaign to fund his IR35 appeal , Dr Campbell, now of Healthcare Leadership Academy, is understandably sympathetic towards his fellow clinician.
Speaking in a personal capacity, Dr Campbell told Kingsbridge: “My thoughts are very much with Dr Mantides, for whom I am sure this outcome [in HMRC’s favour] will be a blow – in that, despite errors in law being found, the overall outcome for this contract has not changed.”
Hemsworth expressed her sympathies too.
“It’s hard not to feel sorry for Dr. Mantides,” she says.
“After all, he spent 12 years with this IR35 case hanging over him. The fact he had to crowdfund just to pursue his appeal speaks volumes. And it reminds us that mounting this kind of defence is beyond the reach of most contractors.”
Asked about IR35 insurance as a financial aid for contractors potentially facing legal costs following an HMRC investigation, locum radiographer Stephen Mhiribidi says workers like him tend to go without.
“As for IR35 insurance, I suspect that most healthcare contractors will not have this,” he said.
For personal service company contractors serving NHS trusts or private hospitals who defy the norm – by actually having IR35 protection in place – auto-renewals and extended terms might not be bad things.
Trying to contextualise the extremely long-awaited IR35 status outcome for Mantides, Chartergates almost did some thinking out loud:
“In this matter, you had the FTT finding facts and shaping a judgment based on the case law at the time. And then a UT in this [April 2021] judgment [released in April 2025] making findings and deciding the matter based on [then-]new, binding case law.
“Additionally, you…[also had] HMRC investigating the matter over a decade ago – again based on the case law prevalent at that time.
“With all this in mind, the length of time this matter has taken to reach its conclusion (hopefully), the changes in case law and the procedural technicalities render this judgment, in our opinion, as one of interest, rather than one of significance.”
Flanked by other status experts, Kingsbridge’s Matt Tyler will shortly feature on Kingsbridge’s Blog identifying the Mantides case points of “interest,” not forgetting that despite being of limited application, the UT ruling represents the seventh IR35 win in a row for HMRC.
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Simon Moore is a journalist with NCTJ-approved journalism training, who has worked inside the newsrooms of local, consumer and national media titles.
He today writes news and features for trade publications specialising in freelancing, small business and the self-employed. Simon’s articles have been linked to by The Daily Telegraph and the biggest newspaper website in the world, MailOnline. He was appointed to be a judge at IPSE Freelancer’s Awards 2023.
