NHS Policy Audit - working party -Thread #3

[KnottyAuty]

NHS Policy Audit - working party -Thread #3

Original thread #1 here:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5291237-nhs-policy-audit-working-party?page=1
Thread #2:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5322494-nhs-policy-audit-working-party-thread-2

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!

@FarriersGirl I'll take any one you care to allot me - just one for starters, but once I'm done (ASAP) I'm totally happy to pick up others.

Having read the piece, nice to see the writer admits we're effective.

But the idea that the TRA lobby could never match our incredible dark skills... Tell me you're a bunch of terminally online, entitled NEETs and sexist slobs who'd rather tear things down and scream at women than actually organise and DO something without etc etc etc.

It did make me think that young people don't have great observation skills. Who the feck do they think organises everything? PTA, summer fetes, youth groups, guides/scouts... on top of family and jobs.... Work expands to fill the time available - Parkinson's Law. Difficult to get stuff done if you don't have much to do I suppose?

ETA - in contrast of course to the £9million annual turnover of Stonewall who encouraged unlawfulness and trampling of women's rights across the board. Odd sense of perspective in this article that they feel threatened by half a dozen mothers making factual observations, as opposed to an entire lobby industry removing female words and rights entirely. Who is being erased exactly?

There all far to ill to organise themselves other than to go on demos and paint offensive placards

Medium is a large established American publishing platform that also hosts a lot of bloggers. The article about us appears to be on a blog. Difficult to know what sort of readership they get [300 followers]

DMs going out now with SW survey links. Shout if I have missed you!

@Opinionpolecat and @Bluebootsgreenboots hopefully you got yours OK?

Got the new link, thank you. @FarriersGirl I'll take the Royal Devon if it's not spoken for yet?

All the links have been DM'd. The initial allocation is;

@Blackmetallic Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership Trust
@YellowRoom Royal Devon University NHS Trust
@teawamutu Dorset County Hospital NHS Trust
@Mipe Great Western Hospitals NHS Trust
@Cantunseeit North Bristol NHS Trust and Royal Cornwall NHS Trust
@Bluebootsgreenboots Cornwall Partnership NHS Trust
@Opinionpolecat Devon Partnership NHS Trust

Hopefully the links work but my MN has been very glitchy this morning😣Let me know if there are problems.
Thank you in advance for the work going into this - its a great piece of teamwork.

On it, thank you.

@teawamutu happy to swap Royal Devon for Dorset County

They do this with zero stakes. We do not have the time and nor do we have the distance to do this so dispassionately.

It was this bit that got me. Zero stakes? Only our rights being unlawfully removed from us, even the very words we use to describe our sex class and thereby the axis of our oppression, were taken away. What higher stakes are there? The author seems to think we're just doing this for a laugh, or to be mean, no idea that we're fighting for our existence in law.

And having the time? I bet every woman in this fight has got a job, caring responsibilities, or both. Unlike the terminally online TRAs who have all day to institute online pile ons against uppity women and rabbit rescue charities.

Oh, and we paid for it all ourselves, we didn't get donations handed to us by Comic Relief, Children in Need, or the US fucking government, and we didn't have every public institution and private company rolling over whenever we wanted something. They're so totally and utterly clueless about who is David and who is Goliath.

No no, totally fine, I picked it at random! Let's stick with Farrier's list. Thank you though.

Thank you @FarriersGirl, will do Cornwall

@FarriersGirl I have submitted Great Western so I’m ready for another one 😀

Just as an aside...

I recently had spinal surgery & have a follow-up outpatient appointment at the end of July. Along with the letter describing the appointment there was a separate form to fill in to capture all my demographics like DOB, ethnicity etc I was very pleased that there was no "Gender" option just "Sex" with a choice of either "Male" or "Female" with no option for "Non-binary" or "Prefer not to say".
Well done East Suffolk & North Essex NHS Foundation Trust!

Well done - the next one is Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Trust!

I'm going through Cornwall Partnership. It's my first go, and I have a Q.
According to the FOI response to a previous request, the Trust stopped working w Stonewall in 2021. However that FOI also shows that they operated a rainbow badge scheme and were submitting their employment policies for approval. Not to Stonewall but to 'LGBT Foundation'. Are they part of Stonewall? Or an own brand knock off? How do I enter that on the form? Thanks

Sorry should add that the rainbow badge scheme was in operation at the start of 2024

OK - I've answered my own Q - I think the respondent to FOI request was not entire honest with 'we've not worked with Stonewall since 2021', as Stonewall is part of the Rainbow Badge coalition. Cheeky buggers.

Great question! It took quite a few trusts to work this out. Different regions work with different LGBTQ charities so it’s not uncommon to find different references. Do pop in a link or a note into your entry and if it’s a local one it’s sometimes worth a google. But if the trust is pursuing Rainbow Badges then that requires gender self ID so that automatically means the staff facilities will be mixed sex.

The FOIs about Stonewall in 2021 are interesting. The question asked by that person was super narrow and interestingly it didn’t get a lot of info as a result. Many of the Trusts state that they didn’t pay Stonewall to be in a scheme at that time. Of course thats not the same as not being in a scheme…. Some trusts stated that and then produced other documents which contradicted that… so keep an open mind and look for gaps in what is said, as much as what is said?!

thanks!

I checked - it was the official Stonewall/LGBT Foundation scheme, as I could see the email address stem.
Nothing in there I hadn't already seen on this thread. HOWEVER, I was struck by the contradiction between self ID for accommodation, and a recognition that it is extremely important for mental health facilities to be single sex. It didn't specify, but I'm assuming that single sex actually meant single gender.

The mental health trusts are particularly bad for this - lots of stuff up front about how important single sex accommodation is for women’s mental health in particular, followed swiftly by trans people can self id into whatever accommodation suits them.

Some have very interesting policies on strip searching and intimate observations too.

@FarriersGirl Dorset County done and submitted, bung me another whenever convenient.

Currently looking at Bristol North Trust - one of their policies claim 84% of trans people "had considered suicide" linking to this 2012 study. The suicide stats are on p59.

transmhstudy.pdf

More from North Bristol, my jaw is again on the floor at these definitions from medical professionals (raises the question of who is writing / signing off these policies):

Hermaphroditism or Intersexuality
A person has an intersex condition when their anatomical sex is ambiguous. The condition may arise due to certain congenital or hormone imbalances in the foetus or placenta. A person who has an intersex condition may or may not experience gender dysphoria. The term intersex is now seen as more appropriate than the term hermaphrodite.