What my NHS Trust have said about the Supreme Court verdict

The example Maya cited as a parallel was the large class action suits over equal pay in retail. How could something like this get under way for GC staff and patients in the NHS?

Two such noisy class action cases were Next (who lost, said they can’t afford to equalise the pay and are appealing ), and Asda (who are losing, but have rejected the judgement so far and are putting up further defence.)

Without union support to organise and fund, I wonder if class action suits for staff against employers will get off the ground? (GMB union were heavily involved in supporting the cashiers at Asda. Think there was also a union involved supporting the store workers at Next. )

Most NHS related unions are currently pro gender self-id and pro trans. E.g. Unison, BMA, GMB, and we know even the RCN did not support Sandie Peggie. So unless they change their tune, they are not going to help on GC related harassment and discrimination cases.

The other organisations experienced in orchestrating class action suits are law companies. Firms like Leigh Day, Harcus Parker, Mishcon de Reya etc. Do we need one of them to show interest?

I think some losses in court generally will focus them. I agree women should take them to court for sexual harassment/creating a hostile environment for women.

I heard Maya Forstater talking on a podcast this week https://thisisntworkingpodcast.co.uk/

She said she is starting to think that the only way to get change will be if groups of GC people band together for support and each lodge complaints about their Trust policies and "hostile working environment". I expect they would need to give specific examples relevant to their own personal case and not a generic letter. Given how difficult it is to speak up, is that sort of mass action likely to be possible?

I've been chasing a response for NHS England's internal policies following the Supreme Court judgement. We don't seem to have had anything circulated internally formally yet, but I have had a response to my persistent queries saying that they are reviewing our internal policies as a priority.

Yup, our Trust received more or less the same text, just yesterday aswell.

Jeez, I emailed my local hospital to ask for their response to the supreme court judgement last week.

No response received so I emailed them again. I didn't get the automatic response to acknowledge my email. I'm guessing this means they've blocked me!!!

How am I supposed to feel safe in their care???

What is the MRA flag? They need laces. And lanyards. Someone's missed a marketing trick there.

My NHS Trust have sent out a very similar email to the OP's. It was sent yesterday - unsure why it took them so long to signal that they (still) don't support their female patients, visitors and staff!

Following on from the separate thread on males carrying out mammograms - how would someone go about confirming if this might suddenly have arisen because there are TIMs working as mammographers? There must be GC people in Trusts who can confirm?

And an update on what the Annex B digging has found (still more to uncover, if anyone on here has any relevant connections):

GreenAllOver · Today 09:50

If anyone is interested, this is the story so far (still got lots of gaps to fill) on mixed sex accommodation in the NHS.
NHS accommodation has been mixed sex since (at least) May 2009.
Blair came to power in 1997 promising to eliminate mixed sex wards. By January 2004 the target to eliminate mixed sex accommodation (not wards) in 95% of trusts had been met. The Government wanted 100% compliance, and set up annual monitoring. All seemed to be going well.
In May 2007 the Chief Nurse published a report on privacy and dignity, which didn’t mention single sex accommodation. In November 2008, the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement published guidance on implementing this report, focusing on mixed sex accommodation. This could be where the guidance changed from biological sex to self identified gender (I’ve not yet found a copy). The month before DH had published a guide to trans healthcare written by a Christine Buns (TW), which told the NHS to go ‘beyond the law’, including guidance on including trans people in wards that suit their gender.
In January 2009, the then Secretary of State (Alan Johnson) announced a new push on eliminating mixed sex accommodation, possibly with the upcoming election in mind. In May of that year, guidance was published which gave trans patients to right to choose the accommodation that matched their gender identity. The data collected would not classify this as a ‘breach’, in the same way as a mixed sex ICU ward would not be a breach. At this point (if not before) NHS accommodation became mixed sex again. But nobody knew, because all the data returns showed the opposite.

I hope some people with analytical minds and minds good at pin pointing details will come on to help.

No wonder our NHS is such a mess. This should not be down to many different individuals within the NHS to each interpret separately. Surely the health minister or someone central should send out clear guidance on what must happen?

Morning all! Over on the NHS audit thread, some of our auditors are doing a deep dive into the source of “Annex B” which is the part of the NHS-wide “single sex accommodation” policy that allows for trans patients to use whatever accommodation they wish. One of our auditors is looking for some help:

GreenAllOver · Yesterday 18:18

I’ve been doing some digging on Annex B (which originally was Annex E). I’ve got as far back as 2009 (attached - its a CNO letter including Annex E, which in practice created a self ID exemption to the mixed sex accommodation rules), and have hit a bit of a brick wall on anything earlier. The guidance definitely predates Andrew Lansley, who was SofS for Health 6 May 2010 to 4 Sept 2012.
Could anyone with the right sort of expertise in digging out information from archived websites help? Logins for HSJ, Nursing Times and other related publications would also help, given what I’ve found on google but not been able to read.
** has very kindly set up a jotform, so it’s a question of digging out the relevant documents and adding them, and then using them to analyse what we need next.
At the moment, the things I’m struggling to find are
all the versions of the Mixed Sex Accommodation statistical return guidance and FAQs, dating back to the start of the collection in January 2004 (as referenced in the CNO bulletin for that month).
Any earlier data collections on the mixed sex accommodation (earlier ones may say ‘wards’), as that should lead us to the data definitions.
A copy of “Delivering same-sex accommodation – the story so far” published in Dec 2009.
A copy of the Nov 2008 NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement guidance on implementing Chief Nurse report May 2007 on eliminating mixed sex accommodation
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7cd02ced915d6b29fa8d19/CNO_note_dh_098893.pdf

If you can lend a hand, come over and give us a shout:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5322494-nhs-policy-audit-working-party-thread-2

None want to go first?
who cares… the roll has started
”everyone is doing it” has just started running in the opposite direction suddenly

Indeed.
but in the last 24 hours, Netball England and (finally) the FA have both concurred. What took them so long?

This is a relief after a week of just hearing from people who oppose the SC ruling. Back in the real world people have been adapting their policy and hopefully the announcements are going to start coming out thick and fast 🤞🏻

Not NHS, but perhaps indicative that private companies concerned about liability are responding positively:

Phoenix pensions company (a big fish, I’d say) has canned its contract with Global Butterfiles, who provide trans consulting based on Stonewall.
www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/05/01/pensions-giant-cuts-ties-trans-campaigner-defy-lavatory-ban/

NHS England haven't even updated their internal approach yet - I emailed our estates team after the ruling as they previously insisted to me that the female marked toilets were still single sex even though transwomen were able to use them.

As with schools, if something now happens in a changing room or ward they are legally fucked.

Finally a message from our CEO….

Basically sympathising with our trans and non-binary staff. (No mention of women obviously).
Everyone deserves to feel safe blah blah.

Ending with : We are awaiting further guidance from Equality and Human Rights commission. Until then there will be no immediate changes to our policies.

As I had predicted, sitting on their hands hoping it will all go away or that someone higher up will find a way to ignore the ruling.

I already sent an FOI asking about single sex changing facilities for staff. I’ll send more to the other two trusts that are part of our group. I like to let them know they are being watched. 😉

My Trust sent out a very similar letter to the OP's, Usual 'everyone - except actual women - has the right to feel safe and included' stuff. And a support contact number for those distressed by the judgement. I deleted it in sheer irritation, but am going to retrieve and save it tomorrow.

I'll DM @KnottyAuty

I think they are dumb enough.

And it would ultimately result in the UK leaving the ECHR and negating any such judgement anyway.

It's an own goal waiting to happen if they choose that option. It's lose lose for them.

Wow. That’s impressive - I thought Arts Council was totally captured.

Not NHS but I received a newsletter from Arts Council England this week which mentioned the ruling. It was completely neutral and factual with a link to the relevant SC statement.

I was surprised but pleased. I guess they've learnt their lesson from Denise Fahmy's case.