NHS- backtracking on single sex wards now Labour are in power

[Chariothorses]

Many of you will remember the government / NHS announcements a year ago that single sex wards for women would no longer admit men, whatever their gender / trans beliefs, due to the negative impact on women.

But the new revised 'single sex wards' policy from Bristol and Weston NHS Trust again makes all female wards mixed sex, states ' single sex wards' can include men (whatever their 'genitalia' as the policy puts it!), and lies there is no negative impact on women forced into communal areas with male strangers (often with sexual paraphilias) when we are undressed, vulnerable, drugged and sleeping!

https://www.uhbw.nhs.uk/assets/1/24-533_delivering_single_sex_accommodation_policy_apr_24_redacted.pdf

I assume trans activist NHS staff are busy doing the same thing across the country. No one in power has stopped them discriminating against women as a sex, sex realist/ GC women, religious women etc. I have no problem if women personally consent to the risks of mixed sex wards, but to discriminate, exclude, coerce and lie to women like this, is shocking, cruel and discriminatory.

Please check your local NHS policies and write/ speak up for the many women who are unable to access care as a result.

Every trust who has this policy in place needs to be challenged through the courts like standing up for women did in Scotland. Starmer always said the equality act protected women, it doesn't, and it allows organisations too much freedom to develop their own policies on the subject, and given the political activism of so many NHS trusts, we know what that means.
The equality act needs and overhaul but neither Labour or the Conservatives will do it. Sunak said he would... but didnt.

Bristol is trans central so am utterly unshocked but it’s completely enraging

the capture of the NHS has been one of the most depressing things about this whole nonsense saga

The trouble with this is that MANY women (& men!) are admitted to hospital in a state that either means they are unaware of their surroundings (e.g. after a head injury) or are in such pain that they'd share a ward with a gorilla if it meant feeling better!
So, in order to avoid either ourselves or other women suffering (and being put into positions they'd rather not be in if they had a choice), we need to make our voice known (by writing, protesting, telling our M.P. of whichever party).

Mixed sex wards is nothing new, but the unavailability of single sex wards for cis women (as we're called) IS new.

Sadly the NHS has been one of the greatest sources of this poison in society. Eagerly removing the language of women in health care (even pregnancy and maternity care). Transactivist staff excitedly looking for ways to wedge male sex offenders claiming to be women on women's wards in some Trusts with NHS England and senior staff signing off on these criminal policies.
Let alone their uncritical funding of puberty blockers and brutal experimental surgery being offered to children and mentally vulnerable young people leading to their sterilisation and life long ill health - again with NHS England & senior staff endorsing everything.

The complicity of NHS England and leading medics really should lead to many of them being imprisoned given what they've done to children and young people.

Sir Keir said: “It’s actually NHS policy for wards to be single-sex and the only reason that isn’t routinely the case now is because the Government’s lost control of our hospitals, but that is the policy and we want to reinforce and to protect that.”

LBC host Nick Ferrari asked: “So if I was identifying as a woman and I went to my NHS hospital, would I be allowed to be on a woman’s ward?”

Sir Keir: “No. It’s a single-sex ward. That is the NHS policy.”

Mr Ferrari: “If I had my Gender Recognition Certificate I’d be allowed on a woman’s ward?”

Sir Keir: “You would be accommodated, but not on a woman’s ward. Hospitals already do this, there are ways that this can be done, lots of wards have side rooms and that sort of thing… The rule about single-sex wards, or the policy, is already there.”

https://pa.media/blogs/election-fact-check/fact-check-what-is-nhs-policy-on-trans-patients-in-single-sex-wards-2/

Having skim read the document, the NHS Trust seems to be using the criteria of presentation.

I dont think in terms of the law "presentation" is ever referred to.

Not sure how relevant the Starmer quote is, but is in line with the use of the single sex exceptions.

But I think illustrates that the NHS trust is intrepriting the law to be self identification.

Is there a local group that could challenge this?

Just checked our website and it does refer to ‘singular sec’ wards. Now to find their definition of sex!

the unavailability of single sex wards for cis women (as we're called) IS new

No it isn't.

Mixed sex wards became increasingly standard as cuts started to bite, dating back (based on personal experience) during the last Labour Government.

Wards are arranged on the basis of medical condition, so some eg maternity (but for how long?!) are women only.

Many older people with age related conditions rarely get women only.

This is another example that the sucess of the TRA arguements actually only have power because they are built on the ingrained sexism that women's concerns are not relevant.

That is why the issue of financial cost to provide women only provisions, whether a refuge or RCC, is too high has led to the closure of many more women's services than anything to do with trans issues.

edited to add have found references of a pledge in 1997 to abolish mixed sex wards.

The single sex ward legislation, with the infamous Annex B that negated the whole thing, was around 2009.

@IwantToRetire hadn't seen that!

I know various local women have raised concerns but the MPs covering Bristol/ North Somerset are all Labour /green, many of whom actively campaign for men who say they are trans to be able to access spaces where women are undressed and vulnerable, so they couldn't care less.
It hasn't been reported in the press, so most local women won't know what the Trust has done!

While I agree it’s incredibly frustrating that this is still occurring, if the decision/announcement was made in January last year (2024) this doesn’t appear to be a newly revised policy. It states on the very first page that it is effective from April 2024 and the next review will be in 2027.

So you can condemn the NHS body that approved this, despite any government announcement that had been made, but the Labour Party did not come to power until July, so this is not backtracking while Labour is in power. It obviously never changed in the first place.

I was thinking more that without accepting the whole "legal women" loop hole (ie having a GRC) what this Trust has written in against the current law.

The law does not cover how people present themselves. ie someone who may look very "feminine" but no GRC is not eligible to be included in Single Sex provision.

But someone with a GRC and appearing very masculine would be eligible.

Maybe the Trust should be aware that this mis use of SSE is being monitored (or rather Labour is trying to cover up how many institutions dont know what they are) and that you or anyone can report them to the EHRC - and even the Minister for women who claims everyone knows how they work.

NB This does not mean I accept the whole legal women arguement, but this is the current law and the Trust is not following the actual law, they are following Stonewall law.

Snowmanscarf · 17/01/2025 18:28

Just checked our website and it does refer to ‘singular sec’ wards.

What, wards for a particularly notable dry wine?

I'll go in that ward, please - sounds a better standard of catering than usual.

Many of you will remember the government / NHS announcements a year ago that single sex wards for women would no longer admit men, whatever their gender / trans beliefs, due to the negative impact on women.

Annex B is still NHSE policy isn’t it? Until they ditch Annex B I don’t see things changing.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/NEW-Delivering_same_sex_accommodation_sep2019.pdf

I've spent a lot of time in hospital, and I think we need to be really clear what it is we are asking for. I've never, in all my stays, seen a single sex ward. The ward is for say, heart patients or cancer, and that's the only ward for that condition. There are multiple bays within that ward. Is that what we're talking about? Every bay I've been in (other than a high observation post surgical bay where there is a nurse at a desk, in the bay, the whole time) has been single sex.

The bays aren't secure - often there's no doors, they just open off a corridor where patients from all bays have to go to use the toilets and shower rooms.

People are wandering around in the night to go to the toilet, there's less staff than during the day, lights are off or dim. I've personally had confused patients digging through my stuff convinced it was theirs, I was on a bay where a confused man kept getting in other people's beds (thankfully not mine) whether they were in there or not!

I'm not clear whether we are asking for there to be single sex bays, or 2 heart wards, 2 gastro wards etc so the whole ward is single sex? I don't see how the second can be provided, but the first is still very much open to abuse if someone is determined.

I think mostly we are asking for honesty. Don’t state that a service is single-sex if it isn’t.

Imagine being completely disabled by illness and a strange man attempts to get into your bed in the middle of the night. This really shouldn’t be happening. Single-sex wards must considerably cut the risk of this happening.

Absolutely - and I've seen a strange man getting into bed with people unable to stop him. Luckily he was just trying to go to sleep, not hurt anyone. I've also been unable to get out of bed, effectively tied to it by drains and tubes, and in a lot of pain, on a lot of drugs.

But what I'm saying is I don't think single sex wards exist anywhere. And the single sex bays within wards - which is what I believe is being compromised by these policies, and what I think politicians are talking about when they say 'single sex wards' are not secure enough even if they are single sex. There's literally nothing stopping someone going from a men's bay to a women's. You have to buzz onto a ward, generally. There's not even doors on the bays to slow someone down if they're trying to sneak around. The staff at night are minimal, they can't watch where people are going and what they're doing. Toilets are unisex single cublicles. Half of them don't even have locks that work.

The policy comes from NHS England and until they update it Annex B will remain. Maternity and gynae are the only true single sex wards. Others are bays with male or female patients. The toilets/showers patients access should be single sex.

Without doubt single sex wards. Mixed wards. Its deeply traumatic. If the person has make genitalia a mens ward, if a woman has a vagina and uterus a womans. If the person does not agree, shame, go somewhere that does or don't get treated. Why should the majority suffer.

Maternity wards aren't single sex: the people receiving care are all biological women but the fathers are allowed to stay there too.

I think it's more correct to say that the NHS is backtracking on single sex wards now that they can't be used to forcibly affirm the gender of a certain sexed patients.

There are no single sex wards - KnottyAuty and the MN NHS audit team proved it by trawling websites and using FOIs.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5322494-nhs-policy-audit-working-party-thread-2

Sir Keir: “You would be accommodated, but not on a woman’s ward. Hospitals already do this, there are ways that this can be done, lots of wards have side rooms and that sort of thing… The rule about single-sex wards, or the policy, is already there.”

I've just copied and pasted this from upthread, apoplogies if it is a breach of etiquette
BUT
I was admitted to hospital with a rare sort of crisis and over the course of 7 nights I was put in 5 different places, mostly shoved about in the middle of the night.
One of these was a side room off a MENS ward. I found out when the Dr chasing me about the hospital told everyone off and said I was far too ill to be tucked away out of sight with just a call button, so a nurse said "Oh we can at least open the blinds for you, oh, no we can't it's a mens ward"

I was so bloody ill it didn't really register, but now it makes my blood run cold.
Fuck off Starmer.

They’re not patients though and there should be separate toilet facilities for visitors. Been some time since I was in maternity but my husband was only allowed to stay in the labour room. Once on the ward it was visiting times, 10am to 10pm where I was and I was in a single room.