NHS Policy Audit - working party

[KnottyAuty]

Following on from Thread #23 of the Peggie v NHS Employment Tribunal. Anyone who wants to help with survey/audit of paperwork against the Equality Act protected characteristics please join here 😊

I think Wes Streeting should be informed about London.

Yes! That too - EqAIs for trans policies only looked at the impact on trans people, not on other protected characteristics.

Agree.

Do we think we could get Sonia Sodha to pick this up for the Observer? It’s not the Grauniad, but it (currently) still gets Grauniad viewers, and it would be so good to try and get it into some more “lefty” mainstream press.

Hmm thats a thought. I feel rather loyal to the Telegraph on this as they ran with it when others wouldnt - but I agree that some left coverage would be good for balancing - even if the NHS think that’s a dirty word

Exactly this. @KnottyAuty I've just submitted South Maudsley - am I right that UCLH is already done?

I've done UCLH

Hi @KnottyAuty and @YellowRoom I'm just starting on Whittington Health now

London north west's EqIA for their Gender Recognition Protocol reduced the 9 characteristics to 8 by changing 'Sex' to 'Gender (including gender reassignment)'.
Would be nice to broaden reach beyond Telegraph, which is probably preaching to the choir to some extent.

Quite!

Gender (including gender reassignment)

I thought was particularly egregious. Confirming that females had been entirely written out of any consideration because all policy is directed to the gender reassignment part of the group. Gah

Have any of your looked into whether your trusts have prayer rooms for Muslims? With such a high population I expect many will claim to have separate spaces for males and females.... or do they?!

So what's next, @KnottyAuty ? England?

Hi all just finishing up Whittington Health Trust which amazingly seems quite sane although no policies to be found. Few more searches to check the batshittery isn't just well hidden but looks as if their approach is based on the (correct) protected characteristics. They even have a woman's staff network - chaired by a woman inspired by Invisible Women.

Furthermore their Single Sex Accommodation Declaration has no extra paragraphs about transgender people.

It may be worth calling out any positive examples in the final summary to show that it can be done properly to encourage a more positive approach across the board? But that could dilute the message we are trying to send?

However, I did come across this little gem "Health and Care LGBTQ+ Inclusion Framework" hidden away in the training materials - not sure if anyone else found it in their searches? Still having a read but wanted to share on P22 in the context of Services are addressing the specific needs of LGBTQ+ people: "One pilot site had the ability to reject policies or service developments that did not meet its standards"

44 pages published by NHS Confederation in September 2022. Just imagine if anyone had ever produced something like this to tackle the health inequalities experienced by women ... but of course not our inequalities are but a mere bagatelle in comparison with LGBTQ+ apparently "The LGBTQ+ population in the UK experiences significant physical and mental health inequalities compared to the general population.1 1. LGBT Foundation (2020). Hidden Figures: LGBT Health Inequalities in the UK
Health-and-Care-LGBTQ+-Inclusion-Framework.pdf

Edited to capitalise "W" in Invisible Women Caroline Criado Perez’s book

Bloody hell. Talk about erasing women and changing the law to boot - surely illegal?

Why is there no shocked emoji on MN? We need one...

apparently "The LGBTQ+ population in the UK experiences significant physical and mental health inequalities compared to the general population.1 1. LGBT Foundation (2020).

Sorry to digress a little from the thread - but on what basis do they make this statement.
There is no particular reason that I can see that L G people should suffer significant physical and mental health equalities; I don't think binary people exist - if they have sex with both male and female they are still one sex themselves.
T people especially if they have had surgery probably do suffer physical and mental difficulties, some of which will be self inflicted, but is it more than the others in the general population? And what in heavens name are Q+ people?

The B in LGB is bisexual, but in principle I agree - strong claims (of eg mental health inequalities for certain groups) need strong evidence. And strong evidence means well-conducted, independent research, not (just) self-selected questionnaires.

Agree with this.

The problem is, enough trusts are doing this that even for the ones which say they have single sex spaces and don't clearly state 'but we'll let XY humans in too', we're left wondering if that includes men who say the magic words 'I'm a woman'.

The NHS largely has unilaterally and outside the law re-defined the common understanding of words, to the detriment of people with particular protected characteristics and especially the most vulnerable. (edited to add - but not told patients about this redefinition away from biological reality)

How can anyone trust them?

I'm interested not only in the EA2010 but also any law around clear communication and lying - does anyone know anything about this? If you're lying about the meaning of words and have directly opposing policies such that patients are being misled, why is this legal?

A sandwich company can't produce a sandwich which does not include nuts in its ingredient list then include nuts, that's illegal. Commercial companies can't mislead their customers, why can the NHS?

Misleading and aggressive selling: rights for consumers - GOV.UK

From the link above:
"Part 1: Liability for misleading and aggressive practices Misleading actions 6. 7. The 2008 Regulations make misleading actions unlawful (see regulation 5). An action by a trader is misleading if it contains false information or if it is likely to mislead the average consumer in its overall presentation."

Saying you provide single sex services and then allowing male bodied individuals into female areas definitely misleads the average patient.

😭spoke too soon. I've found it. Changed sex to gender - now only offering same gender accommodation: "The term ‘gender’ is used in this statement to refer to an individual’s sense of themselves and is based on an understanding of gender as a biopsychosocial developed aspect of identity. Gender describes a part of a person’s identity which is wider than their biological or legal sex."

Will update the jot form

Thanks for this. I'd really love it if we could find a good NHS example.

However I think for us, your example is much better to illustrate the reaction of an ordinary person reading their local website - you left thinking happily that single sex spaces are in tact. They are not.

Can you spot the error in this statement from the Board?

As the Trust Board of Whittington Health, we affirm that the Trust is an open, non-judgemental and inclusive organisation that will not tolerate racism or discrimination. We celebrate the diversity of our staff and community. We will treat all our staff equitably, with dignity and respect, whatever their race, gender, religion, age, disability or sexual orientation.

https://www.whittington.nhs.uk/default.asp?c=30839

And worse see here for FOI searches: https://www.whittington.nhs.uk/default.asp?c=20208
Check out pages 142-146
The entire single sex ward promises are now being presented as single gender - and this has been dated 24th May 2024 confirming that they are blatantly breaking the EHRC 2022 guidance.

Thanks for drawing this particularly nasty example to my attention!

(sorry if you are disappointed - I also wanted it to be true)

@Peregrina This is the source reference for that claim: Hidden%20Figures%20FULL%20REPORT%20Web%20Version%20Smaller.pdf

Can't vouch for what you may find inside - I haven't checked it out yet

Give me a minute!? I'm just trying to read and absorb the mass of London stuff to work out how it comes together... Glad you are keen tho ...

I need some time to write up the London findings and think about how to tweak the form again. I think I need to change the questions to drill down into single sex accomodation as seen on the website and then as seen on the FOIs - with a compare and contrast? So let me do that first.

In the meantime, I think there is real value in picking off specific areas. For example in June, Darlington/North East would chime best. But before that - I was wondering if we should go for either:
a) South East England - where the 2022 rape case was where the NHS told the police that there was no men on the ward?, or
b) Midlands - where the lovely Jenny is recorded on camera saying that GC views aren't acceptable and need to be stamped out? https://x.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1904094734680817776?s=46

Any preferences?

Yes, @KnottyAuty so disappointing. I somehow failed to find the declaration in the FOI link - not sure how! The version I found via googling was dated 2013 which is sex all the way - other than one gender mention but looks like as direct replacement for sex from the context.

This shows that the NHS is going backwards - the policy was there to protect the characteristic of sex but now it's not. Coinciding with the Sullivan Review which (I think based on media reports) shows NHS has been conflating sex and gender in its data since 2015 - making the last decade's data unsafe

Ooh thank you - that is a really excellent point!
Getting more stealthy and difficult over time - I hadn't thought of that

And they would have got away with it too, if it weren’t for those pesky kids vipers!

^ This - love the nuts analogy - very apposite

Edited to add "Does not contain nuts" should be an absolute requirement for all single sex spaces 😂

Re the nuts, from our fav NC:

www.legalfeminist.org.uk/2024/11/06/sex-peanuts-and-statutory-interpretation/

just posting here to thank you all and offer virtual tunnocks and tea/coffee all round. Really in awe of the effort and the (can’t think of the word, I basically want to say a word that means many many levels beyond just “competent”!) Fucking amazing basically

im sorry I am not competent enough to help practically with your work but I (I’m the woman whose hospital room was entered by a man) will update you when I get feedback from the hospital. I’m waiting for results on something else before I raise it.will also shortly be looking for carers and single sex care is a Q we will pose when enquiring with agencies. may start a separate thread when I do it.

on topic I am absolutely fucking astounded by the “even if not gillick competent”. What the actual hell. So glad you are. Getting this over the radar so to speak.

To all