Mixed-sex wards used a record 5,000 times in a single month – despite Wes Streeting condemning practice

The right to a single sex ward is supposedly laid out in the NHS constitution

" if you are admitted to hospital, you will not have to share sleeping accommodation with patients of the opposite sex, except where appropriate, in line with details set out in the Handbook to the NHS Constitution"

The trouble is this document conflates sex with gender. In addition wards may contain single sex bays supposedly with separated WC and washing facilities but in practise this does not always provide the privacy and dignity that most of us expect.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-nhs-constitution-for-england/the-nhs-constitution-for-england#patients-and-the-public-your-rights-and-the-nhs-pledges-to-you

It is also a problem that the NHS tries to run at too high an occupancy rate, so often runs out of beds. There may therefore be no choice but to put patients in mixed-sex wards.

UK acute care beds run at 80-90% capacity. On average, OECD countries run at 70-75% capacity. England has 2-3 beds per 1000 people, whereas Germany has 7-8 beds per 1000 people.

Ensuring single sex wards in the UK is going to take more than just enforcing the law. But putting people in opposite sex wards should be a last resort, based on clinical need, not on patient preference or staff interpretation. And NHS staff should be honest about it.

I wonder if anyone here more knowledgeable than me can tell me what a single sex ward is actually defined as?

The reason I ask, is the main hospital for my area has 1 'ward' for say Gastro or Cardiac or whatever. That ward consists of a locked door, opening onto a long corridor with a main desk, and off that at 90 degrees are bays - holding 6 or 8 beds. These bays are (supposedly) single sex. The bays have no doors. Just a big hole in the wall. They are male and female bays that change depending on how many of each sex are patients at any one time.
Toilets and bathrooms are generally single occupancy and unisex (often with no working lock!) and on the opposite wall of the long corridor to the bays.

Is that a single sex ward because the bays are single sex? Or are the people - like Streeting - who are telling hospitals that they must have single sex wards envisioning a hospital with 2 completely self contained Cardiac wards?

Because that is physically impossible in the hospital in my area and I expect many others.

Add to that, if single sex bays are what they mean - there is absolutely nothing stopping a male leaving their bay and then entering a female bay. Not even a door. Frankly there's not even enough staff, especially at night, that they would even notice that happening. But that's another subject I suppose!

From the article:

A government spokesperson said: “The use of mixed-sex wards soared under the Tories, and are another sign of just how damaged the NHS became under their watch.
“As we look to fix the harm they’ve done, we’ve been clear – the safety, dignity and privacy of patients is crucial, and NHS Trusts are expected to eliminate mixed-sex accommodation.
“Even with high flu cases and demand for services at unprecedented levels, it is not acceptable for patients to share sleeping accommodation with members of the opposite sex, and trusts are reminded robustly on this point."

How can these politicians be so disingenuous? State this but then simultaneously say TWAW and women with penises are free to enter these single sex spaces… how do they reconcile these opposing ideas in their minds?!

Ive not read the article but I think it’s interesting that this has surfaced just after our England audit results hit the Telegraph. Im wondering if we will get to “mixed sex happens so often that there’s no need to worry about it” and instead of reinstating single sex spaces, they’ll be removed as much as possible….?

The trouble is that the NHS does not record sex accurately for a whole host of factors. It also deliberately hides the fact that wards are de facto mixed sex, by allowing self ID of trans identified people into the wards of their choice. This means that any figures produced are utter nonsense!!!!

See article from the Telegraph - yes this is from KnottyAughty's audit crew.

https://archive.is/BSekm