Health Secretary Victoria Atkins: ‘The Labour Party is writing women out of our vocabulary’

[IwantToRetire]

What gets her most impassioned is the topic of women – and what she sees as attempts to eradicate their place in society.

Most recently, an NHS trust provoked fury after saying that <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/Bm1bq/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/18/trans-womens-milk-as-good-as-breast-milk-says-nhs-trust/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">breast milk produced by trans women who were assigned male at birth is as good for babies as that produced by a mother who has given birth.

Before that, the health service was found to be using the term “chestfeeding” in place of breastfeeding.

“I’m a mum – I find it extraordinary that a trust thought this was an appropriate use of their time,” she says, suggesting that such services would do better to concentrate on tackling long gynaecology waits.

“I’m very comfortable and clear that I am a woman and I would like my rights as a woman to be protected. And they will be protected by the Conservatives.”

She is most scathing of all about Labour’s approach to women, suggesting that a “Left-wing mindset” is creeping into the NHS.

“That is why we need to be making this robust case to refuse to wipe women out of the conversation,” she says.

Sir Keir Starmer <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/Bm1bq/www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/26/keir-starmer-woman-is-adult-female-labour-hardens-stance/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">famously struggled to define a woman, settling on the statement that 99.9 per cent of women do not have a penis, as the party became embroiled in trans rows.

Last year, then-health secretary Steve Barclay promised the return of “sex-specific” language to the NHS after references to women were expunged from its advice on the menopause and diseases such as cervical and ovarian cancer.

But many trusts have resisted the shift, routinely referring to “people who give birth” while some have referred to “birthing parents”. Atkins can barely contain her outrage.

“When I see reports of mothers as ‘people who give birth’! No – they are mums. I find it deeply concerning that there are parts of the Labour Party and the Left who seem to think that women can just be written out of our vocabulary.”

“Half the population are women. Of course the NHS should use the word ‘woman’,” she adds.

These paragraphs are just a small part of quite a long article in the Telegraph but thought they would be of interest https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/23/health-sec-victoria-atkins-interview-mothers-nhs-trans/

She also talks about women and prisons and abortion being decriminalised. Full article can be read at https://archive.ph/Bm1bq

Do you think she'll lose her job when Penny TWAW Mordaunt becomes Tory leader after the next GE?

...and the Conservative Party is writing them out of the workforce.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/07/uk-women-work-childcare-pwc-budget

https://inews.co.uk/news/free-childcare-risk-nurseries-close-staffing-crisis-2792564

Thank you

I see the Torygraph article is still peddling this particular Boris lie: "We meet in a brightly coloured side room in Hillingdon Hospital in North West London, where she is being shown the construction of the new hospital, one of 40 builds under the Government’s flagship New Hospital Programme."

I get that single-sex wards are highly desirable but I'm afraid that after 14 years of Tory cuts people are lucky to get a bed at all, often after several hours in the back of an ambulance. At our local hospital the wards are focussed on an area of medicine and from what I recall, you generally walk through the male half to get to the female half. Not sure how, practically, you get from that to single-sex? I don't think there are any wards at ours that have been mothballed due to lack of money/staff but there aren't enough staff for the ones they have open. My wife's hip replacement was delayed because the orthopaedic ward had been given up for medical patients (I won't mention the virus in case the trolls descend).

from what I recall, you generally walk through the male half to get to the female half

I was in hospital as a six year old in the 1970s (paper sheets, strikes and three day working week due to the Labour government). I remember the children’s ward was one half of an old Victorian ward separated by a partial-height petition down the middle with gaps at the end and in the middle. The other half, which you had to walk through to get to the shared TV lounge, was for men….

If you're going to make party-political points, please get your facts right. The Three-day week was introduced in 1973-74 by Edward Heath's Tory Government.

This woman is the fucking health secretary

Another example of school boy politicing. All air and no substance.

She's been in post for a few months.

Get a grip.

With any luck she won't have a job after the next GE!! ;-)

I'm pretty sure that 2 or 3 years ago Victoria Atkins was chanting TWAW. Anyone else remember?

So for her to be "barely able to contain her outrage" that NHS has done the same thing she was doing herself recently is a bit disingenuous, to say the least.

(sorry if already answered, not finished RTFT yet)

Very true (though she was a cheerleader for TWAW) but her party has held the position of health sec since 2010, 14 years.

They ve achieved soooooooo much.

I almost cant be bothered to say this again, because it is clear that yet again people who only want to spout slogans dont wont to engage with the actual process of politics in the UK dominated by the 2 party system.

I quoted and pointed out that I had quoted the bits relating to sex based rights. I pointed out that she also talked about other issues such as decriminalising abortion.

Quite honestly it is making starting threads on FWR because in the end they get high jacked by simplistic finger pointing cadre agit prop whose purpose isn't anything positive, but just to block discussion on principle.

In the real world the issue is can a lone individual in a Government get that government to change policy.

Again to repeat myself, picking on Jess Phillips for not being sufficiently gender critical is irrelevant as the person in charge is Starmer.

The nonsense of raising single sex wards as a stunning indicator of Tory hopelessness, when single sex wards were got rid of for financial reasons. ie for decades under all sorts of Government women's sex based rights were not a priority.

It is like the sort of play ground discussion they have trash tv. Lets get extemists shouting at each other.

Not forgetting that most of these people probably cant tie their own shoelaces let alone initiate a policy, turn it into a bill to be voted on in Parliament, etc..

That is the issue. The process. Who can use it. What can influence it.

And one thing we know for sure is that women by and large do not influence policy, and more importantly women are not part of the hidden networks of personal connections that in the end are usually the reason why some things happen and some dont.

Maybe we should ask MNHQ to do one of their public interviews not so much a Q&A but a basic lesson in the political process in the UK.

Apologies for allowing the hijackers to wind me up to the extent that I can help but respond, and recognise that most posters are doing so in good faith.

OK - so one of the bits you chose to quote was
“I’m very comfortable and clear that I am a woman and I would like my rights as a woman to be protected. And they will be protected by the Conservatives.”

Where is the evidence over the past 14 years to back up the statement that women's rights "will be protected by the Conservatives"?

It’s the Tories who think we are stupid

I don’t think on this issue there is anything much to choose between the three main parties though. A plague on all their houses.

I genuinely don’t think Labour will bring this area of men’s sexual access or sex rights forward again if they get into office either. They’ll be like the Tories- giving a few warm words to try to pacify women or TRAs, whoever they care about most at that particular moment, which as a group will swing between TRAs and women. And none of which will be backed up by any genuinely anti-sexist legislation. Just as things have been under the Tories.

And in terms of public appetite for more TRA-friendly policies, I can’t see that growing at all. The Cass report will be coming out, the wheels will be publicly falling off this child-exploitative sexist anti-safeguarding nightmare even quicker than they have been already.

There are obviously loads of other things to choose between the three main parties though when voting on other important issues. For me personally that’s what I will cast my vote on. I won’t be rewarding Tory failure. Public services have been worse than decimated under the Tories which is what always happens, and schools and hospitals are crucial to me and so many people I know. So I really want and need change.

@IwantToRetire

No one is hijacking anything, unless you think having a different opinion to you shouldn't be allowed?

But why are you banging on about single sex wards? the Tories have been in for 14 years and have had plenty of time to rectify that, but instead you blame previous govts.

The Tories have had 14 years to change the GRA but instead of accepting that, we get "oh its only now we realise the problems..." BS.

For me, as someone who has voted Tory in the past (pre 1997) their record is what does for me, in particular DV refuge's, any party that cuts funding to this vital service has no business in being held up as a party for women, the Tories are fundamentally a party for men, hence why they don't care about battered women, probably think they deserve it.

As for Women influencing policy? is a party with proportionately few female MPs going to allow that or one with a majority of female MPs?

Oh dear, did we not do "I'm voting Conservative l, at least they know what a woman is" right?

Saying women deserve single sex words is the very bottom of the barrel for the Health Secretary. She has the power, she needs to put it in place. Why doesn't she?

Please could you show me which Act of Parliament gives the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care that power? I don't believe that she does.

Yeah, I forgot the government ministers job is just watering pot plants 🪴

You can be as sarcastic as you want but it doesn't change the fact that she has no legal power to effect any change. She could, of course, work up a bill to give herself that power but that would require a complete reworking of the relationship between the DHSC and the 'hands off' agencies.

Sorry, are you trying to say the minister for health has no influence over health?

Bizarre as it may sound, that is what I'm saying. The SoS produces an annual NHS mandate which identifies the high-level objectives and sets the budget. The CEO of NHS England is then accountable to their DHSC sponsor (a senior civil servant, not a minister) and the HoC Health and Social Care committee for delivery against that mandate. I know that it's bonkers. You know that it's bonkers but it's what we have.

Civil servants are there to enact government policy though. So the senior civil servant will be enacting the Conservatives strategy.
That's literally how the country functions.

Sorry sunshine. That isn't how it works. The Departmental Sponsor is not enacting any strategy. Their role is to hold the CEO of NHS England accountable to the annual NHS mandate. That's it. That is the end of it. There is nothing else.

Thanks Jane, you've just uncovered yet another thing the Conservatives have borked for me.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2014/feb/14/who-runs-nhs-england

So who does run the NHS in England? In a recent report for the Centre for Health and the Public Interest we tried to answer this question. The 2012 Health and Social Care Act sought to separate off, once and for all, the day-to-day running of the NHS from political interference and to "limit the ability of the secretary of state to micromanage and intervene". It did this through establishing NHS England as a separate entity from the DH, which would have the power to spend most of the NHS budget and commission a significant quantity of healthcare services. It would be controlled through a yearly mandate set by the secretary of state and be left to get on with the job.

So the Conservatives could "set a mandate" for single sex wards if they wanted.

Or they could implement a better governance system.

It is amazing how much of today's shit show ultimately originates from earlier Tory decisions.

This is the problem you constantly have understanding policy. You don't actually know how bodies like the NHS, which have an arms length relationship to the government, function.