NHS mental health hospitals allow criminals to self-identify as women

[Igneococcus]

This just popped up in the Times:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/57de0939-7e44-4133-bac7-35b84b39eb60?shareToken=950b6241299f4f01e801c35f1f6d1bba

I’ve got a lot of evidence about this. At the same time Alan Johnson was announcing a big push to eliminate mixed sex accommodation, the Dept of Health was quietly re-writing guidance to implement self ID. And explicitly telling hospitals that this was an ‘acceptable breach’ in the same way as having a mixed sex ICU or A&E was OK.

This was not just in the Dept of Health’s mixed sex accommodation guidance, or their trans guidance, but right across their publications. I’ve got the receipts, and so has Knotty as she set up a jotform to log them.

Oh, and it has happened. I can’t find the case right now, but a woman was raped on a mental health ward, then gaslit that ‘there were no men there’.

I also came across this article, which is the personal story of a woman terrified of men who needed a women only mental health ward, but didn’t get one:
www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/news/lancaster-mum-with-fear-of-men-locked-on-hospital-ward-with-transgender-patient-653048#

Gosh that's grim. Interesting that in 2018 they were citing the Equality Act as saying that men should be able to self-identify into a women's mental health facility after 'legal advice'.

@Lovelyview The Dept of Health guidance saying to do so was from way back in 2008/9, so 2018 was a decade later and it was clearly well embedded.

It's all to do with annex b, which is the exemption re single sex accomodation

https://sex-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Reviewing-Annex-B.pdf

I've met this woman and she used to post on here after her experience in the hospital. She's very lovely and thoughtful and the way she was treated was absolutely appalling. I wonder if she's still here
It was yet another peak for me, every time you think it can't be more insane and worse for women, it is and it's so often the NHS.

Policy from NHS England is to allow self ID so not just mental health hospitals and criminals. I believe it is currently being reviewed following SC but no changes made yet.

This was the tone of the government legal advice at the time. Look up Claire McCann.

That briefing is good, but it doesn’t go right back to when the mixed sex accommodation guidance was first published, and doesn’t mention quite a lot of other Dept of Health guidance from around the same time which also covers this issue. I’ve been tracing it all back to find when it started.

Claire McCann, one of the main government legal advisors at the time of the GRA consultation believed it would be almost impossible to justify excluding men with GRCs, even from rape crisis services exclusively for women:

“123.The Explanatory Notes for the Act give an example as follows:
A group counselling session is provided for female victims of sexual assault. The organisers do not allow transsexual people to attend as they judge that the clients who attend the group session are unlikely to do so if a male-to-female transsexual person was also there. This would be lawful.129
124.Ms McCann advised us that “this example is drafted too categorically”. While it demonstrates a “legitimate aim”, it gives “insufficient information […] to show that the exclusion of trans people is appropriate and reasonably necessary (i.e. proportionate) to meet that aim”. She further suggested that in the instance cited it may only be lawful to exclude trans people if they do not hold a GRC:
I would doubt that a service-provider of single-sex or separate services could turn away a trans service-user who holds a GRC because this is unlikely to be proportionate. 130”

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmwomeq/390/39007.htm

It's jaw dropping isn't it. The needs of any and every woman who may ever need that most awful and sensitive of experiences is not a proportionate reason to say 'no' to a man.

Stuff the interests of all the women and the fact the service was exclusively set up for them solely to meet their needs - throw all that aside! Now there's a man to nurture!

I recall something about a young woman on a MH ward and Karen White but that may be a separate incident.

I'm going to have to say that in all likelihood traumatised women have probably declined inpatient care because of mixed sex accommodation and died as a result. A large proportion of seriously mentally unwell/suicidal women are survivors of sexual and/or physical violence and are scared of men. And it's not uncommon for those who die from suicide to have presented at emergency care or to have been previous inpatients.

I've had the much less difficult experience of going to a mixed "psychoeducation" NHS group. And seeing why women self exclude from mixed groups, here a requirement to being offered therapy. A man, openly on various illegal drugs and agitated, was physically aggressive and verbally abusive to me in this "education group". I had to leave and was quite scared, unusual for me. The staff didn't intervene.

I raised it the next week and asked why they did not interfere and the staff told me "it was a good experience for me" .WTF. I told them I had plenty of experience dealing with aggression and more was not going to improve my mental health! A lot of women didn't return for the second session, I presume they didn't feel safe...but if it cuts down demand for therapy so who cares...I only returned because I correctly predicted this man, having had someone stand up to them, wouldn't return...

Sorry for the long post, but I'm really grateful this broader issue has gotten into the news.

I think the one @ItisntOver is referring to was a bog standard hospital ward rather than a mental health ward. Not that that makes it better or worse obviously.

Knotty and friends, you should be so, so proud of the work you're doing, there aren't enough thank you's in the world to show my appreciation and I know I'm far from alone. Your group is on a JKR-level pedestal for me and what you're doing is equally awe inspiring and every bit as important.

Sorry, I meant the one @GreenAllOver mentioned that you quoted

This Claire McCann?
https://www.cloisters.com/barristers/claire-mccann

If so, she’s an advisor to the Women and Equalities Select Committee (or was, in 2015 for their transgender enquiry, her current status isn’t clear) but she doesn’t appear to have been employed by the Government at any point and doesn’t mention being a Government advisor.

I remember this from that time so I may be mistaken, but I’m sure she was presented as being influential on the government in 2018ish.

I’d echo this. I wanted to get involved but work and life intervened. Serious respect to the team of dedicated women systematically calling out the institutionalised abuse of women.

Sorry for late response but it unfortunately it is incredibly hard to get justice in NHS mental health. As it's NHS policy individuals aren't held to account and have nothing to worry about.

See i.e. recent case where someone died due to a known suicide risk / method and very unusually got to court but cleared of manslaughter. Happens frequently and rarely gets that far although CQC do flag it on inspections regularly.

The situation is even worse with justice for sexual assault or mistreatment. Many inpatients will not be considered reliable witnesses (and probably aren't) to assault or even rape because of severity of conditions.

Possibly a general health and safety case or a whistleblower case might gain traction.

I used to work as a regulator in finance, especially risk management frameworks, before a period of severe mental illness. I was mortified by what I experienced, saw and heard and looking through i.e Board papers.

Again thank you to Mumsnetters getting this in the news!