New NHS guidance on same sex accommodation

[LukewarmCustard]

The guidance starts out well. '1.2 Guidance statement: Providers of NHS-funded care are expected to have a zero-tolerance approach to mixed-sex accommodation, except where it is in the overall best interest of all patients affected.'

But then there is Annex B, which says 'Trans people should be accommodated according to their presentation: the way they dress, and the name and pronouns they currently use. This may not always accord with the physical sex appearance of the chest or genitalia. It does not depend on their having a gender recognition certificate (GRC) or legal name change. It applies to toilet and bathing facilities (except, for instance, that preoperative trans people should not share open shower facilities).' Annex B was apparently written with input from the Government Equalities Office.

NHS accommodation is now mixed sex accommodation with allocations based on pronouns.

I started work in the NHS in 1996, just as the experiment in mixed sex wards was dying out. In the 80s there had been a Laing type push by some for 'normalising' hospital environments and allowing previously segregated groups to mingle more, based on the reaction against institutional long term care. This was leapt on by acute hospital leaders with shrinking budgets and the first targets on patient care to meet. Pure mixed sex provision, first come first served, is undoubtedly the most efficient use of a limited resource of open bays and wards/shared bathrooms. But patients and families loathed it. Disinhibited 65 year old detoxing alcoholic Frank wandering behind the curtain around 80 year old Mary immobile with her broken hip was not what anyone wanted. It was so hated that the reaction against it is still in place.

Now more wards are single sex and en suite, it does make it easier. But there are still plenty of wards and bays out there and not likely to be rebuilt any time soon. I do think trans people should be first in the queue for single rooms, their needs are more complex. But a blanket 'trans trumps all else' approach leading to mixed sex by the back door is not right.

I do think trans people should be first in the queue for single rooms, their needs are more complex.

Well, maybe not more complex than everyone's, but I would agree that single rooms is likely to be the most pragmatic solution. So long as that didn't result in a spate of

..whoops... people declaring themselves binary on admission to hospital.

I meant non binary.

So if I understand this correctly, any male who identified as a woman regardless of having a GRC or not, must be allowed on a female ward.

Similarly any make who says they are non binary. Regardless of appearance or anything else.

So by those rules, it would be outright discrimination to block any ordinary bloke from the female wards wouldn’t it? I mean, on what basis are males in eyeliner who are non binary let in, but Big Hairy Barry is denied access?

On a thread recently about Youth Hostels, someone more legally savvy than I made the point that, by using characteristics that have no basis in law, it’s discrimination to then pick and choose between individuals who you give special treatment to.

@Popchyk I can send a direct letter to his local office as he is my MP (nb my comments on your suggestion on other thread) Can I plagiarise yours?Or perhaps someone can assist in writing a more extended letter?
As you may gather I have little respect for the man - he toes the party line & if you write a letter to him about an issue it seems that he doesn't read the specifics but just quotes the party line - he is not much liked by people within the NHS either

I mean, on what basis are males in eyeliner who are non binary let in, but Big Hairy Barry is denied access?

There's no way to distinguish between them. They have removed the protected characteristic of sex from the Equality Act.

mumwon, of course. Use what you like.

I'm hoping that he'll at least be asked a question by the media about it. And he can explain how 'same sex' actually means 'mixed sex'.

So many politicians sitting around on sofas doing interviews, talking about all sorts of bollocks.

I'd love just one of them to explain to the voting public how single-sex spaces can be maintained when members of the opposite sex can identify their way into the single-sex space.

Thank you custard.

So my question will be, how do you prevent any male abusing the Annex B rules to access vulnerable women?

Let’s understand the protocol here for busy staff to weed out the chancers. Because surely they’ve spent as much time working this out as they have spent promoting rainbow lanyards, right?

From Annex B. I can't quite believe that someone has written this in an NHS document.

If, on admission, it is impossible to ask the view of the person because he or she is unconscious or incapacitated then, in the first instance, inferences should be drawn from presentation and mode of dress. No investigation as to the genital sex of the person should be undertaken unless this is specifically necessary to carry out treatment.

WTF? Mode of dress?

So we’d all better not get run over by a bus wearing jeans, trainers and a sweater then, or we’ll all wash up in the men’s ward.

Or not. Because we all know what ‘mode of dress’ this refers to don’t we.

Perhaps you need your preferences embroidered on your clean knickers.

This new policy is almost identical to the old 2009 policy.

The choice of telling the public that the wards would be segregated by SEX whilst instructing the NHS to segregate by GENDER instead, was 100% a government decision.
A deliberate deception.
The NHS have clearly defined BOTH sex AND gender, they have been explicit that the two should not be conflated. And the NHS team challenged Andrew Lansley, Health Secretary, for his deliberate choice to lie about which of sex and gender wards would actually be segregated by.

He insisted upon using the word sex.

Copies of meeting minutes verify that this conversation took place more than once.

And one of the principal NHS meeting attendees said he told Lansley to be honest to the public that wards would be self-identified gender, but that Lansley insisted upon using the word sex. This attendee said they would swear in a court that this was what happened.

This happened a decade ago.
All receipts and links to documents are in the article below.
medium.com/@anneharperwright/sex-gender-the-nhs-1e8f4e6363a6

If, on admission, it is impossible to ask the view of the person because he or she is unconscious or incapacitated then, in the first instance, inferences should be drawn from presentation and mode of dress. No investigation as to the genital sex of the person should be undertaken unless this is specifically necessary to carry out treatment.

So Pips Bunce would be sent to a men's ward if he was run over by a bus on a 'Phillip' day, but a women's ward if it was a 'Phillipa' day? seriously?

"purposefully"

So hang on, if a bunch of guys dressed up for a laugh on.a stag do ended up in hospital unconscious, they would be put onto a womens ward due to their presentation?

What if I get run over in my mens.jeans..i bought them as i needed Jeans urgently and Tesco had nothing else that fitted. Will i wake up surrounded by men?.should Iake surs i only ever wear pink tops with said Jeans just on case ?

Fucks sake if drs and nurses cant tell who's male and who's female and designate beds accordingly then get the fuck.out the hospital

This policy has been written and presented with exactly that level of deliberate deception.

Front page says zero tolerance of mixed sex wards.

Page XX in Annex B, hidden in the back, we find sex means absolutely nothing at all.

Sneaky, deliberately dishonest and dangerous. How the actual fuck do they get away with it?

By 'better public understanding', they apparently mean, 'er, it's better that the public has the wool pulled over their eyes'.

@BoomBoomsCousin I wrote the piece that prompted the review behind this announcement and went through 100+ policy documents for individual trusts. I can't remember any that undertook an EIA that didn't test the impact on other trans people - so the impact of trans policy on a trans religious/elderly/gay patient. This looks to be a repeat of the original guidelines and confirmation of the individual policies. If I have time tomorrow I'll post the original story in full on my blog - it was more than 2000 words that were cut by half.

And the only time trans patients would be naturally placed on a same sex ward was if they were undergoing sex related treatment - so a hysterectomy on a trans man, for instance, would see them on a woman's ward.

@Knewmee I FOId every trust in England for this piece so I already have all their answers (well, of those that replied). Matt Hancock announced the review as a result of the storm created by the piece - only, by the looks of it, to reaffirm what it discovered. Most don't answer questions, just send the policy documents for you to wade through. I had to read 3000 pages which took months. So many headlines came out of it they kept out one element to run the next day that got lost in the hooha over the main story - that male children are also allowed onto girls' wards if they identify as trans.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/10/nhs-trans-row-men-get-access-womens-wards-identify-female/

I'm a subscriber so I don't know if it's still behind a paywall. If it is I'll try to get it on the blog but that will take some time.

I did separate FOIs on who advised each trust but didn't do anything with it.

GIRES provided the baseline info for the guidance/policies.

“The policy commitment relates to foxes, not chickens. But to promote better public understanding of the difference, we’ll just call them all chickens”

I'd sooner wards were fully mixed sex than this.

Exactly. I'd feel safer in the bed next to Dave who had nothing to do with any of this and who may well be just as uncomfortable as I am than in the bed next to Davina who actively pushed for this situation to happen and who may want to have a chat about how we're all girls together.

I can't remember any that undertook an EIA that didn't test the impact on other trans people - so the impact of trans policy on a trans religious/elderly/gay patient.

Does this mean that they only looked at the effect on other trans people? The EIA should look at the effect on all the protected characteristics.