Updated NHS single sex guidance to be published on Thursday 20th August

I'll take a punt before we see it that you won't be able to guarantee being on a female only ward if you do. "Operational pressures" will override that.

I'm going to be absolutely furious if this results in all the trans people getting the few available NHS private rooms, but I'll bet my bottom dollar it does.

Lets hope they finally get it right

I will be looking for the essential cover up waffle such as 'in the best interests of' 'pressure points' and I will certainly be feeling queasy if equity is mentioned

Two new publications up today but nothing on single sex guidance yet.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/

This is the obvious “solution”, not that it is at all a satisfactory solution and stinks of a panic reaction to shut up the loud voices, but then you have to factor in the patients who need single rooms because of a known infection. Where will they be put! You can’t have patients with known infections on an open ward.

I really think they have to bite the bullet and make sure all the male urine receptacles are kept in the same place, not scattered about randomly in case someone on a female ward needs one for their lady dick.

Didn't realise this was happening, thanks OP!

I'll expect a lot of gronda-ing to the aspidistra in the process of the heinous evil of having to act to respect and boundary womens needs at all. To the True Believers even to consider women is a sin; the righteous discard them as having no needs, views or wishes that matter.

The NHS is one of the worst bastions. Even a grudging acceptance and boundary around women's services and resources while gold plating the very special provisions made for the more important is a start. And it will mean women not being on wards with men, some of whom as evidenced, have thoroughly enjoyed their time there abusing and sexually harassing those women, and in one case, raping them.

SEEN in Health are a very reputable source, but they can only go on the information they are given. If NHSE decided not to publish today, for whatever reason, SEEN won’t likely have had any prior notice of that.

It happens, things get delayed.

Shame it’s delayed. I can’t help but think this unofficial advance notice may have been a mis-step. NHSE may have had a TRA flooding event…

Someone set the sprinklers off in Quarry House maybe....?🌧

https://x.com/SEENinHealth/status/2091481366059753813

Such a lack of confidence, shirking of responsibility and rejection of duty in our public institutions - we have really allowed our civic culture to degrade into moral relativism and illiberality.

https://x.com/GBNEWS/status/2091603385132757353

Nitter version:
https://nitter.net/GBNEWS/status/2091603385132757353#m

'It’s disappointing, but not surprising, that NHS England shelved the release of single sex spaces guidance last week. It may now be quietly slipped out just before or during the bank holiday Honestly, we don’t care when they release it, we just want them to release it. The guidance is already signed off. Women’s rights and lawful practice shouldn’t depend on timing games'

Here's Yvette Cooper being almost very clear about how very clear the law is:

https://youtube.com/shorts/5JcgqC-zKtE?si=MSSoBaKa2bCJoPR8

She did swerve the direct question about which ward a transwoman would go on. But she said that the law is the law and single sex means biological sex - I never expected that kind of sentence from her. This is progress.

This is from about 2 weeks ago and she mentioned NHS guidance coming out in the next few weeks.

I wonder if the guidance is being delayed a little so that the NHS can figure out how to answer that type of question in a unified way.

It's really quite extraordinary that no one actually wants to say the words out loud. They can say the law is the law, they can say needs will be accommodated as much as possible but we have to abide by the law.

The absolute terror of saying if you're a man you go on a male ward irrespective of your identity is quite something.

She is obviously hinting that they are trying to find some work-arounds to putting these men on male wards, but that will have to be single rooms or some such. I do think that this is not going to do the TRAs any favours. When everyone could just shove TIMs into women's spaces it was easy, but now that alternatives are having to be found politicians and managers are going to get fed-up of the ridiculous demands being made of a cash-strapped country with an almost broken health service. Every health practitioner that I have spoken to will be very cross if the single room resource is used for any reason other than clinical necessity.

Bonkers. So it was fine to put a man in a bed next to women, compromising their privacy, dignity and safety, but in a men's ward he must be put in a private room to... To what? To save his blushes? To massage his ego?

She is obviously hinting that they are trying to find some work-arounds to putting these men on male wards, but that will have to be single rooms or some such.

Yes, that was the hint that I picked up too.

Every health practitioner that I have spoken to will be very cross if the single room resource is used for any reason other than clinical necessity.

I think there is a way to make these rooms available for dignity or belief reasons, as long as patients who are allocated them understand that they are lower priority than those who need it for clinical reasons.

In my own experience, I was offered a side room when my appendix burst and I was admitted for emergency surgery. It happened 3 weeks after my first child was born and at the point when I was admitted, I was still breastfeeding her so she stayed with me in the room. Unfortunately after a couple of days it became clear that I couldn't continue because it was taking too much of a toll on my body but I was kept in the side room for the remainder of my time in hospital. It was made very clear to me right from the start that the room would be taken off me if it was needed for clinical reasons and I fully understood and accepted this.

TBF I can't remember if I was on a mixed-sex or single-sex ward but as my baby was with me and the ward doesn't have the same security as a maternity ward, I should imagine safeguarding came into play when I was initially allocated the room. I could see a case for safeguarding and dignity to be taken into consideration if a trans-identifying person was on a single-sex ward.

Obviously for any autogynophilic transwomen it would presumably come as a disappointment that they would have to choose between an open single-sex ward for males or a side room within that ward, but they would have no legal recourse so would have to lump it.

It was a Labour government which brought in the GRA, with its pretence that people could change sex. So saying if you're a man you go on a male ward irrespective of your identity is backing down on their previous position that men could become women if they really, really wanted to.

The absolute terror of saying if you're a man you go on a male ward irrespective of your identity is quite something.

@OldCrone I think worry about an old manifesto, despite it being a previous Labour policy to bring in the GRA, is the last thing on Yvette Cooper's mind when she avoids stating the obvious.

She could possibly be vaguely worried about votes, but this is not the same Labour now and all they really need to do when their backs are against the wall, is say "sorry, people, blame the law, not us."

if you're a man you go on a male ward YOU ARE A MAN irrespective of your identity

It's the very last thing that remains to be said, that will never be said by Labour (because Labour will never admit that they have been wrong all this time about the ideology and the activists). And it's the last thing that needs to be said, if we are ever to trust any of our politicians ever again.

As @Datun said, Cooper won't say it because she's up to her neck in this, and she's afraid of the (male) activists.