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Got a question for Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care?

207 replies

JustineMumsnet · 12/09/2025 15:24

Hi all,

Next week we’ll be back in Westminster to put your questions to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting MP.

His brief covers some big areas that we know are really important to Mumsnetters - including maternity care, access to GPs and dentists, mental health services, social care, public health, and how we keep the NHS sustainable in the long term. If you’ve got a question you’d like me to ask, please post it below.

As ever, one question per user please and keep it civil. We’ll be tight on time, so please keep questions short and sharp, so I can get through as many as possible.

We’ll close the thread on Wednesday pm - so do get your questions in before then.

Thanks,
Justine

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IAmNotASheep · 23/09/2025 12:13

Bunpea · 23/09/2025 11:27

Thanks @IAmNotASheep !
yes the design shows two banks of cubicles with a communal washbasin area across the end. But no door between the washbasin area and the banks of cubicles. So nothing to stop e.g. a mischievous boy from wandering down the bank of girls’ cubicle for a lark or something worse, or I suppose a girl wandering down the bank of boys’ cubicles.

A door to each bank of cubicles would fix this and allow gaps. I can suggest this.

However my experience is that the washbasin areas need also to be single sex. Girls and women have to do things, such as clearing up after a menstrual mishap, that most of us would rather not do under the gaze of a curious boy or man. It’s about dignity. Does the Equality Act or Building Regs say anything about that?

Why not simply split the set of washbasins and put some in each of the single sex areas of the banks of cubicles? What is the benefit of having a communal washbasin area? I can’t see the point.

It doesn’t spell it out exactly I’m afraid. However

Washing facilities must have single sex provision

To women whbs in banked toilets are more than just to rinse a bit of pee that no one can see off your hands.
So ss provision of cubicles and whbs that are banked should not share the basins in order to protect women’s privacy in line with the provision of single sex washing facilities.

We, as women, need to explain this to the men and Stonewall crew that haven't got a clue.

IAmNotASheep · 23/09/2025 12:22

Keeptoiletssafe · 23/09/2025 11:58

Alarm cords won’t work because of practicalities. Apologies that the next bit is a bit grim but the following (however rare) should be taken into account in design:

Assaults - many assaults take place in disabled toilets (space, privacy, mixed sex) and I have never read a report where the woman or child has dared to pull the alarm cord.

There’s a teacher on here that says a child used the cord to try and harm themselves - they managed to get to the child in time. This is also why you have to be careful with hook placement.

This brings me on to the next point that children would want to pull the cord. Children have died recently in new private designs in schools where I know it was due to a medical health emergency as it was published. Teachers were unaware and were unable to do cpr in time.

As an ex-teacher, I have witnessed hypos and seizures and brain injury (mini-stroke). I haven’t witnessed a child having a heart attack. In none of these medical emergencies would there be enough awareness to pull a cord. Recently spiked vapes have caused children seizures in schools - children go to the toilet to vape. Luckily so far as I know, seizures have only happened in the playground or corridors where teachers have seen immediately and done cpr.

The other reason is misuse. There is no way my Year 9’s would not have pulled those cords all the time for a laugh.

Schools have tried so many ways to alleviate problems that could be sorted with a safer, simple, cheap (no subscription) floor to door gap.
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-install-toilet-sensors-that-actively-listen-to-pupils/

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Alarm cords are currently the only solution for fully enclosed toilets ie disabled and mixed sex.

As it currently stands privacy and dignity as a wider more prevalent problem takes priority

There’s no way to have both gaps and privacy and dignity I’m afraid.

The best way to solve the safety issue for the majority of students is to conform to the current requirements and have single sex provision in the main. Only the few mixed sex facilities will then be fully enclosed

Keeptoiletssafe · 23/09/2025 12:32

IAmNotASheep · 23/09/2025 12:22

Alarm cords are currently the only solution for fully enclosed toilets ie disabled and mixed sex.

As it currently stands privacy and dignity as a wider more prevalent problem takes priority

There’s no way to have both gaps and privacy and dignity I’m afraid.

The best way to solve the safety issue for the majority of students is to conform to the current requirements and have single sex provision in the main. Only the few mixed sex facilities will then be fully enclosed

Show quote history

I agree. That’s why the school design documents rightly always had the unisex toilet by the entrance, typically opposite the reception desk.

What I would love to see is more accessible toilets inside the single sex space. That would be inclusive and afford people who need these toilets the safety features of single sex.

IAmNotASheep · 23/09/2025 12:38

Keeptoiletssafe · 23/09/2025 12:32

I agree. That’s why the school design documents rightly always had the unisex toilet by the entrance, typically opposite the reception desk.

What I would love to see is more accessible toilets inside the single sex space. That would be inclusive and afford people who need these toilets the safety features of single sex.

Show quote history

I agree and perhaps that’s next steps
but you’ll find an uphill battle with that.
Education buildings are designed with very slim £££ margins.

Keeptoiletssafe · 23/09/2025 12:49

IAmNotASheep · 23/09/2025 12:38

I agree and perhaps that’s next steps
but you’ll find an uphill battle with that.
Education buildings are designed with very slim £££ margins.

Show quote history

Yes which is why I will be interested who foots the bill for all these new designs being replaced when they were signed off. The DfE were very keen to stress who is ultimately responsible for the safety of pupils in each type of provision (academy, independent school etc etc) - it didn’t seem to be them.

Carriemac · 24/09/2025 22:37

What aren’t UK medical graduates priorities for training posts at home like every other country does ? We have vast swathes of our medics stuck in Australia unable to get a training post at home
and having cost the Uk a fortune to train . Meanwhile IMGs of dubious quality and poor language skills get training posts here .

llizzie · 25/09/2025 15:27

Bunpea · 23/09/2025 08:59

@llizzie
Floor to ceiling cubicles might solve the privacy issue, but they are unsafe (as well as being unhygienic - see earlier in post for NHS research on unisex toilets). Toilets are where people go when feeling ill - heart attacks, epileptic fits, diabetic hypos, drug ODs, anaphalaxis (maybe carrying an epi-pen), severe asthma etc. Paramedics know this. But with floor to ceiling enclosures, no-one would know if someone was on the floor.

An example of this issue made the news in July this year when a 38 year old man, Sean Stephen, unexpectedly collapsed in such a toilet cubicle in Edinburgh council’s headquarters building. He was not found until some time after he had died, because no one could see he was on the floor, even though it had been noted he was missing and people were out looking for him.

UK data on prevalence of the kinds of health conditions which result in unexpected collapse suggests that a typical high school (of say 2000 pupils) will have several dozen pupils with conditions that result in them being at risk of collapse.

I get the point that floor to ceiling cubicles solve the privacy problem, but they are the wrong solution for schools IMHO.

I agree with you. I do not think there should be mixed toilets anywhere, and especially not in a school.

Are you able to stop that happening?

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