NHS Policy Audit - working party - thread #2

[KnottyAuty]

This is a thread about “keeping the receipts” on NHS Policies prior to the Supreme Court ruling on 16th April 2025.

Our working theory is that there were no single sex spaces for NHS Staff or Patients in the entire country before that date, having all been removed by stealth. We are aiming to prove this by auditing websites and policies for all the UK trusts and using the results to raise public awareness. As well as recording what has happened historically, the information will form a baseline so we can check which Trusts comply or defy the judgement in due course.

We are working around the country region by region. If you fancy getting involved in a bit of grassroots feminism then please do join in to help!? Each trust takes about an hour to research and you can upload online without giving any personal details away. Comment below and we can give you the link to an online survey - it changes for each region.

Thanks soooo much to all the vipers who have helped so far and @ Twoloons for doing a great job with the thread wrangling!

Here are the press articles we’ve managed to generate so far:

Scotland:
25th March: The Telegraph
https://archive.is/dTUhY
26th March: Scottish Daily Express
https://archive.is/kaLCB
26th March: The Telegraph
https://archive.is/iSD9m

London:
21st April: The Telegraph
https://archive.is/awGuz
23rd April: The Telegraph (in conjunction with another thread by NHS mumsnetters)
https://archive.is/1DO8d

Original thread #1 here:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5291237-nhs-policy-audit-working-party?page=1

“Our” Telegraph writer is keeping on at this issue:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/8724ea5f8513733f

NHS to test all ‘trans’ children for autism

Oh that is such good news!
Whenever I see footage of trans people at the rallies there is so much neurodiversity on show. Maybe now will get the actual help they were supposed to have been offered after The Autism Act...

I'm trying to fill in the form for my last Trust but when I click the link it says "currently unavailable" - has the form been closed? It worked ok for my other 2 Trusts

Excellent ongoing media coverage. Great work, you brilliant women.

I will FOI the Welsh authorities as I think I just did Velindre. I have a paid sub to WDTK so can do so in a group request which makes tracking & follow up on non response much easier.

You may also like to look at the FOIs to (almost all) English trusts another woman and I did on rainbow badges. These demonstrate gender identitarianism in action. The applications to the LGBT Foundation reveal so awful policies including my local hospital committing to assisting the "non birthing parent" with chest feeding".

On another matter, I'd missed that the EHRC cancelled their meeting with the Scottish Government because SG tried to add a discussion about the UKSC ruling to the agenda at the very last minute..... https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/media-centre/news/statement-meeting-arranged-24-april-2025-cabinet-secretary-health-and-social-care

Ermine
(pronounced Irmin)
aka StoatlyL on X

Oh dear! I’ll investigate!

Thank you so much for your stellar work! It is absolutely the case that we couldn’t have done half of this without you!

Yes, as @KnottyAuty says, this dates right back to Annex E of this letter from the Chief Nursing Officer and Director General NHS Finance, Performance and Operations, on Eliminating Mixed Sex Accommodation, outlines actions all Trusts had to complete by 30th June 2009. Buried in Annex E of this letter, you'll find much of the wording that persists in these policies to date. It can be read in full here: www.gov.uk/government/publications/eliminating-mixed-sex-accommodation-in-hospitals

Have DMed you!

Too right. The Bluestocking thread is all about the gerbils and quokkas, but I think the spirit animal for this working party has to be the ermine.

100% agree. Thank you SeaStoat - you have an impressive body of work! We all need virtual support ermines, obviously with suffragette colour scarves, when we delve into the next pile of NHS misogyny policies

Been passed to you guys from another thread. Delurking to pass on any potential useful info. I'm sure you've all already got this, but just in case...
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=org.nhslothian.scot/foi/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2024/05/8616.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiOj4ibxvqMAxV5QkEAHcKEAQwQFnoECCYQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0fYf5j4Q7OtEloazhofXya

Also, my other half is NHS staff so anything else that may be useful, let me know. I'm crap at reading threads, checking replies, answering etc, but have been here since the dawn of time. Penis beaker, crying at the cistine chapel, naice ham, water guns are a good idea (that thread was hilarious, might go and see if it's on classics).
You guys are the reason I am GC and therefore my Dh, and subsequently most of his NHS department 💜

Derbyshire Community Health NHS Trust submitted - finally. Sorry for the delay they had quite a lot of relevant info freely available to the public, so a lot to go through

When I click through that link, I get a NHS Lothian “page cannot be found” page. Is this because they are memory holing all their not-actually-single-sex policies?

I was the one who audited Lothian, and they were dreadful. In the end I think it was only FOIs that showed us their actual policies.

edit (spag)

Thank you so much for making all those FOI requests, I’ve found it incredibly moving to shift through such a phalanx of responses when looking to see if the Trust I was researching had been in your sights (they always were).

I salute you. As others have said, we couldn’t have made the claims or found the examples we have without your work.🙏🙏🙏

Is there anything I can do to help in Wales? We follow each other on X (I'm socksknitter)

Hiya @Rosebud21, I’ve noticed you seem to have a few trusts left to do. As we’re hoping to get the Midlands done very soon, I hope you don’t mind if I pass some of them on to others so we can finish things off a bit quicker? Shout if you’re just about to finish one of them and I won’t hand that one out.

Everyone else, are there any vipers up for a quick audit? Probably these three:

• Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust
• The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
• University Hospitals Birmingham NhS Foundation Trust

Shout on here if you can take one!

@TwoLoonsAndASproutit looks like they've taken it down!
I saved it as a pdf - I'm sure you must have it if you did Lothian and foi. It's a response letter outlining their policy from 2024. But if there's anything I can do to help is love to!!

I can do one of those if you let me know which one...

Link still works for me

I can take one (can’t work on it till tomorrow but have time to get it done then).

Birmingham University Hospitals - unless anyone else has a preference

Try this @TwoLoonsAndASprout
https://org.nhslothian.scot/foi/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2024/05/8616.pdf

It was authorised 5 February 2024. "If we refuse to allow a trans person to use the toilet or changing facilities that they feel comfortable using, this could be unlawful discrimination on grounds of gender reassignment."

"These kinds of decisions must be made on a case-by-case basis...."

"The content of this guidance is taken from existing published guidance, in particular, the EHRC statutory code of practice. Therefore, since the content does not include any new or revised policy or practice an equality impact assessment was not carried out."

I don't think they are correct re the EHRC Code. Do we have any experts here in the EHRC code?

Scots law mandates an impact assessment must be done (unlike English law). I'm not sure they can dodge the legislative requirement by saying we didn't write it, guv.

And anyhow NHS Lothian should not have abdicated their responsibilities as it well known across Scotland when they were signing this off that women (PCs sex. disability & religion or belief) were impacted by letting men into women's services (Isla Bryson, anyone?). The red flags for employers re this policy were clear with the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre case in court the previous month.

www.equalityhumanrights.com/equality/equality-act-2010/codes-practice/employment-code-practice-0

Glad you found it @SeaStoat. Thought it seemed relevant and didn't want it missed.

At some point, once I'm less ill and my DDad isn't dying, I'll be more active in this again. I was very active on Twix but was scared off by David Paisley. Got death threats, rape threats, the lot. And had stupidly used my own name. Also worked for Ed council at the time so was suitably freaked 😂

Ah yes, @SeaStoat, the “case-by-case” argument, or as we call it round here the “may contain nuts” argument, after this article by Legal Feminist:

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

They are lawyers (in fact, that article is written by NC) and they say that no, case-by-case cannot be individual-person-by-individual-person, but rather must be situation-by-situation. Once you have determined that it is proper to offer a single-sex-exemption for a specific situation (a work changing room, for example) then it is always single-sex. If it says it is nut-free, then it always has to be nut-free.

WRT not doing EqIAs because the guidance came from the EHRC, that line gets trotted out in most NHS policies, and like you I don’t think that argument would hold much water.

Also yes, that’s the FOI I was working from. Never found a document on the Lothian trust’s own websites though.

Do you want to take Birmingham and Solihull? Thank you!