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

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3913831-How-a-radical-lesbian-became-a-leading-trans-activists-as-a-trans-man-one-of-the-usual-suspects

Here's some stuff about Whittle and press for change, I wish I could find the amazing MNer who shared some info about Andrew Lansley deciding that us commoners didn't need to know annex B turned the much-publicised single sex NHS accommodation into single 'gender'. I'm sure I had something of him saying it'd confuse the public so keep it quiet. I'll keep looking

Ooo, yes please to the Lansley stuff! Anything you can dredge up!

I can take on a Trust this weekend. No preference, happy to have one allocated

It'd be a lot easier if I could search FWR from before MN split the boards (and if MN search function wasn't so awful). I FOId my Trust for their transgender care policy before COVID times (and it was an absolute shocker) and posted about it and got useful info from very knowledgeable MNers, but I can't even remember which username I had then.

Sorry have only had time to skim but this looks promising:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3705528-New-NHS-guidance-on-same-sex-accommodation

Sorry for spamming the thread with multiple messages, I'm looking high and low for old stuff re Annex B. This is the goods I think:

The deliberate use of the word SEX to name the policy, whilst using GENDER to facilitate it, was a Department of Health mandate from Andrew Lansley.

The NHS team told the Department of Health that the name of this policy was misleading. They insisted it should truthfully be called “Eliminating Mixed Gender Accommodation’. A source within the NHS confirmed that they fully understood that this policy related to gender, but that the DOH was explicit in its directive:

Segregate wards by gender. But definitely tell people it is by sex. “To ensure a better public understanding”

A year after the implementation of the policy, The NHS board meeting minutes of the Post Implementation Review once again specifically broach the subject of the misnomer between the fact of the policy, and its name and public references. And once more, they noted that “The Department of Health had purposefully used the word ‘sex’ in the standard”..

https://medium.com/@anneharperwright/sex-gender-the-nhs-1e8f4e6363a6

Edited, missed out a quote

This is excellent stuff - please don’t apologise! Spam away!

Joani Walsh did loads of FOIs in 2019 re Annex B: she said it was GIREs who advised on the policy

<a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/2023.10.05-044736/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/10/nhs-trans-row-men-get-access-womens-wards-identify-female" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://archive.ph/2023.10.05-044736/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/10/nhs-trans-row-men-get-access-womens-wards-identify-female/

Edited cos broken link and wrong spelling!

2019 FOI of NHS Improvement as owners of the Delivering Same Sex accommodation policy (with an EIA about as well done as you'd expect)

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/equality_impact_assessment_for_d_2#incoming-1488421

Sorry link still broken

archive.ph/oRYph

It's a Telegraph article by Camilla Tominey from 10th January 2019 called 'NHS trans row as men get access to women's wards if they identify as female'

Crikey. Amazing stuff @nothingcomestonothing .

I can just about remember Andrew Lansley. He’s now 68, and in the House of Lords.

Wow - I missed the posts last evening but an amazing bit of research by this group. I remember the so called Lansley reforms well as I worked in the NHS at the time. They were very controversial.

@nothingcomestonothing
Without wanting to sound patronising this is incredible- well done!

A quick search says Camilla Tominey who wrote the article linked above is now associate editor at the Telegraph. She might be a good person to approach with this if she’s not already aware after Knotty’s brilliant work.

I think an FOI would be helpful. Ministerial advice is exempt, but something asking for all the Ministerial decisions, directions and notes of meetings/calls/conversations made by Andrew Lansley that relate to Annex B, the language used in it, it’s policy and how NHS England should implement it would be very interesting. It might need splitting up into decisions, meetings, calls/conversations as otherwise you might find that it was too big and caused disproportionate cost.

That sounds like you have some experience with this - would you be willing to take some of it on? And/or advise on how best to approach it?

@TwoLoonsAndASprout I’m happy to advise. My public sector employer is currently consulting with a trans group on how to respond to the SC, and I value my job, so I can’t do the FOI in my own name.

That is absolutely fair enough! To be honest, I think many on here would have similar concerns.

I think there was some talk about getting a membership thingy to What Do They Know. Maybe time to do that…

I won't take the credit as I'm only sharing what the women of FWR shared with me, when I was trying to fight the transgender care policy at my own Trust.

Women here have been trying to raise awareness of annex B since 2018 at least. One of the issues of MN splitting the boards, because Vichy 'intersectional' feminists didn't want to sully their eyes on posts about the biggest threat to women's rights in the global West in our lifetime, is that it's now really hard to search for posts from before the split. So all of that work, and part of the history of the feminist activism here, is obscured.

All of these Trusts based their policies on annex B. And I would imagine will all defend them as 'just following orders'. They might have added their own flourishes from their own pet TRAs, but the bones of all of them are annex B. And FWR clocked them years ago.

i wonder if it’s worth privately asking Justine if there’s some way to access the pre-split archives. One or two of us could verify ourselves, in some way, as the people who are doing this audit.

But actually, when you say

So all of that work, and part of the history of the feminist activism here, is obscured.

as a researcher, that really made my guts clench. It is important work, from a historical point of view (FWS started here!) if nothing else. It shouldn’t be hidden. Maybe a better approach would be to ask for it to be made easier to search? Do we have any electronic archivists on here? Anyone who could advise?

Can I help?

Presumably this excellent Telegraph article is a result of the efforts of this wonderful group?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/03/nhs-trust-uses-derogatory-terf-slur-in-official-guidance/

https://archive.ph/uLsfi

There is a problem with Annex B though.
It’s attached to the single sex policy but it’s not “enacted” or referenced within that document or listed as a permitted breach. So legally it’s not what I’d consider to be “watertight”. IANAL but I bet a good one would drive a bus through that document

Oh woot woot! Missed that one - yep, that’s us! Look @KnottyAuty!

Wow!

Well done everyone working on this thread