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

That’s basically standard policy. Some trusts go the extra mile and will affirm a child and keep it secret from their parents if the family doesn’t agree…. Red flag would be more appropriate than the Progress surely?

Pretty much par for the course with all the trusts we’ve audited. Sadly 🙁

The original Dept of Health guidance on mixed sex accommodation says “In some instances, parents or those with parental responsibility may have a view that is not consistent with the child’s view. If possible, the child’s preference should prevail even if the child is not Gillick competent.”. My bold.

Is that the one from 2009?

@KnottyAuty Yes.

Calderdale trust response to Stonewall FOI:

Please can you supply copies of any correspondence that you have had with Stonewall or/and other diversity equality and inclusion organisations. - We receive general marketing material; these are deleted as they come in.

😂

Calderdale and Huddersfield uploaded

Morning @KnottyAuty and @TwoLoonsAndASprout I will sort out the list of trusts for the South East later today. Happy to do some thread wrangling on this for you!

Thanks!
Let me also check if we are all done now on the North East to see if any there need mopping up and then we can start allocating. I’ll set up a new Jotform link and DM it to you.

Wes Streeting has intervened. A senior NHS England official visited Darlington Memorial Hospital unannounced last week and described the changing facilities for female staff as ‘inadequate’.

The official apologised to one of the Darlington nurses, promising to act ‘with speed’ by providing male, female and gender-neutral changing rooms, adding: ‘We want you to feel comfortable and safe.’

All good - now what about the women elsewhere across the UK (Fife, anyone?) who do not have single sex changing rooms? And the men on women's wards?
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14790917/Victory-Darlington-nurses-win-landmark-battle-female-hospital-changing-room.html

Amazing, but ugh, the abject failure of “the official(s)” to do anything before we all started shouting at them…

Women, we just don’t count, do we?

@KnottyAuty in case you need a northern newspaper, consider, in order of influence I think:

1. Yorkshire Post. centre right. columnist Bill Carmichael has written some material questioning gender ideology generally, and its capture of institutions.
2. Manchester Evening News. Centre left. Reporter Adam Maidment covers LGBTQ+ stories, seems generally sympathetic to trans, covers their personal stories. Main editor is Sarah Lester. Is owned by Reach PLC, feeds local newspapers.
3. Northern Echo, centre left. Based in Darlington
4. Liverpool Echo. Centre left.
5. Newcastle Chronicle
6. Sheffield Star

Thanks!

Thanks for posting this. I’m really glad this signals a sea change in staff facilities. Hopefully we are on the way to third spaces and choice for all. What a relief.

But for our audit this probably means we need to crack on! Work still needed for patient care.

Are we still ok to keep going on the Jotform as it currently stands? Both staff and patient info for completeness? Or to help us speed up do we switch to just patient care? What do you all think?

I submitted South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust yesterday for what it's worth - there were problems (due to me!) that I put in the notes at the bottom. I'd say stick with patient and staff policies as the temptation to lie will be too strong for some NHS managers. Let's get in there quick.

All women who have to change at work need the spaces as promised by law, not just the Darlington nurses, although I am very happy for them of course.

I think we need both, for completeness. If we’re eventually going to work this whole thing up into something I think we need to keep it the same across all regions.

Ok I agree - just wanted to check. Let’s keep it all the same 😎

I think I've said this before, but some Trusts are signposting, or even officially referring (Calderdale), 'gender questioning' children in their care to LGBT+ advocacy organisations/charities. This does not sit well with me. I can understand giving a smoker a leaflet about a local 'giving up smoking' group, but what they are doing here seems to be shifting responsibility, ensuring the children are 'affirmed' and, at worst, introducing them to adults with a problematic agenda.

At some point, when the Wise Heads here think it is the right moment, I would be in favour of a shift to highlighting the children

Thanks. This aspect hadn’t occurred to me. Your analogy with smoking is a good one

East of England or South West are particularly relevant to children. Essex and Dorset top the trans league tables for numbers of children accessing paediatric gender care

Agree this needs tackling. Dreadful to think NHS Trusts abdicate responsibility for children’s care in this way, but not surprising. I would add to it the issue of the use of Gillick competence in gender dysphoria cases which, to be blunt, seems like another opportunity for a cop-out by clinicians and Trusts.

But might an issue for now be that if this would expand the scope of the audits, it risks slowing things up?

Haven’t thought it through, but suspect there is enough around the treatment of gender dysphoric children for a whole separate workstream.

@Bunpea I agree, I think it’s a separate workstream. From what I’ve seen, a lot of the early Dept of Health guidance (written by GIRES, largely) was specifically about, or had a section about, children and young people. I’ve got a list, not sure it’s comprehensive but it would be a place to start.

I’ve also seen specific trans guidance and resources for other groups - linked to the National Service Framework for Older People, for example. I’d expect that to also cover issues around capacity, though not Gillick competence as such.

But might an issue for now be that if this would expand the scope of the audits, it risks slowing things up?

Possibly. I have gone down a couple of rabbit holes with the Trusts I looked at, but that was going a bit beyond the staff/patients/single sex accommodation model we have been working with.

Here are my thoughts:

We’ve found that other than the “London has no single-sex spaces in NHS trusts” article, the newspapers really like specific “issues” - so, the Gillick competence one, the mental health trusts one, etc.

If you auditors can flag up on here anything at all that you find particularly egregious as you go along (or indeed that you remember from earlier trusts) @KnottyAuty and I can go through the database and find examples of that to pull together, or dig further if needed.

In the meantime, the audit can carry on without any interruption - as pointed out, we need to get all the evidence we can, possibly before it gets memory-holed.

Does that sound ok to everyone?

Just to add:

Please don’t let me stop anyone from going down rabbit holes and doing your own research, by the way - I know it’s something that I end up doing, just by default, because I want to know. Just don’t feel like you have to.

And if anyone really does want to dive deep into something specific, DM me or @KnottyAuty - we can probably help facilitate another side workstream like @GreenAllOver’s one.

@TwoLoonsAndASprout Def don't want to give you and Knotty any more work😬

I'm going to 'print to PDF' and paste into the final part of the jotform any unsettling children-related stuff, for future reference - which I think is what you are suggesting. I suspect the 'mental health' trusts are going to have the worst examples.