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!

Ouch!

I know. I hate to use the “cult” word on here, because at the end of the day we are collecting hard evidence, and throwing unfounded opinions around doesn’t help things. However, forcing a wedge between a person and their family — in favour of another group — is cult-like, and I am not remotely comfortable seeing it in NHS policy documents.

@GreenAllOver, have you come across this about GIRES?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5354429-confusing-statement-about-treatment-for-intersex-being-a-victory-for-trans-community?reply=144987929&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

Don’t know if useful, but might have some puzzle pieces…

@YellowRoom Have you see the AGP fetishy photos on Steph Meech’s Facebook profile? 🤮

Just looking at the Rainbow Badge Assessment for Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust as a proxy for policies as no FOI on the policies for this one. Found this which might be a breadcrumb worth following on the relatives vs community point (my bold):

"Are the Trust's compassionate and/or special leave policies inclusive of loved ones/chosen families/close support networks and supporting someone through transition?

This is an unscored question.

The special leave policy mentions that leave will be granted if there's a 'bereavement of a close member of your immediate network', which we believe covers chosen family, but could be made explicit to avoid there being any disparity of approval. Chosen families, loved ones and close support networks are those who are not biologically related or near relatives but take the place of these familial roles. This can be particularly significant to those who are estranged from their families, an issue that disproportionately affects LGBT+ people.

Action: Within the special leave policy include loved ones/chosen families/close support network in definitions of family."

It’s Orwellian to assume that a family automatically doesn’t have best intentions and are harmful, therefore should be separated from their relative. Goes against principles used in adoption and social work and SEN etc. you know - like safeguarding?!?

The special leave thing could be interesting. We would need to get comparisons with the other policies to make it meaningful. Maybe a FOI needed now to get results back in a month?

I hadn’t specificallly known about GIRES’s involvement, but I have been keeping half an eye out for the conflation of GIRES and DSD/intersex, and haven’t spotted it in the guidance I’ve seen.

There’s a huge amount of content, from what I’ve uploaded to the jotform on Dept of Health guidance and BeLemonHam’s input on equality guidance. I think there’s probably enough for someone to go through and audit development of policy around sex/gender as it relates to:

• Children and young people, especially Gillick competence (and lack of it not being a barrier to overruling parents’ wishes)
• Older people (especially those with dementia or delirium)
• People with mental health problems, especially those on secure (ie locked, can’t leave) wards
• Consideration (or lack of consideration) for people who are not trans and an attempt to balance rights
• Going ‘beyond the law’ or giving advice (eg best practice examples) which encourage readers to believe that self ID is the law
• Positive discrimination in favour of trans employees (eg in terms of how medical leave for transition is treated, compared to comparable reasons for medical leave)
• Privacy and dignity, and how the right to privacy about a GRC has been developed, argued and used. There’s a wider issue about using Government guidance to encourage individuals to take legal action against public bodies.
• The legal and ethical status of Dept of Health guidance which was written by interest groups such as GIRES. With follow up questions about whether this avoided the usual civil service checks and balances (including legal checks) and the Ministerial approval process, which is necessary for democratic accountability (Nolan principles).

Thank you for that! I will do some digging…

I can't speak for all professions within the NHS, or all geographical areas, but the North West has what can be a very generous & wide-ranging return to work support programme called SuppoRTT for medical/dental professionals in training programmes, it covers return from maternity/parental leave along with many other reasons for absence/being new to the NHS etc.
SuppoRTT

SuppoRTT covers all of England, it’s funded by Health Education England. I’m not sure what will happen to it now HEE is going.

I’ve just (thanks to another thread) found some excellent research on the history of sex and gender in the NHS. I’ll add it in to the jotform when I get time, but for now here’s the link:
https://medium.com/@anneharperwright/sex-gender-the-nhs-1e8f4e6363a6

And there’s also a lot of things I want to follow up from this thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3463920-Lets-go-back-to-2007?reply=83696520
For instance, I had no idea that GIRES was founded as the charitable (ie non political) arm of Press for Change. There’s also a lot on there on related issues, like the definition of ‘trans’ in law, and the suicide statistics.

If PencilsInSpace is still around and reading, her posts on that thread were fantastic, she’s clearly super knowledgable and it would be great if she was able to read this thread and add anything that she knows. She pointed out that women weren’t consulted on changes to the Sex Discrimination Act in 1999, while Press for Change were! Which reminded me, I found some Dept of Health guidance on gender and access to services written by the Men’s Health Forum, with no matching guidance by a women’s health group.

@GreenAllOver, oh I’m glad you spotted that thread with the link to the “let’s go back” thread - I was going to point it out to you but got waylaid.

@GreenAllOver id also forgotten to read that. How incredible that PfC were consulted and women not!? Amazing find!

Health Secretaries over this policy period:

2 May 1997 – 11 October 1999 Frank Dobson
11 October 1999 – 13 June 2003 Alan Milburn
13 June 2003 – 6 May 2005 John Reid
6 May 2005 – 28 June 2007 Patricia Hewitt
28 June 2007 – 5 June 2009 Alan Johnson
5 June 2009 – 11 May 2010 Andy Milburn
12 May 2010 – 4 September 2012 Andrew Lansley
4 September 2012 – 9 July 2018 Jeremy Hunt

For the timeline: 16th August 2010
”fanfare” announcement of single sex wards

good quote from Andrew Lansley:

”Patients should not suffer the indignity of being cared for in mixed sex accommodation. I am determined to put an end to this practice, where it is not clinically justified.

"In the future, NHS organisations will have clear standards, spelling out when they should report a breach.

"Where NHS organisations fail to meet this standard, we will let the public know that they have failed and we will strengthen the fines which may apply.

"Patients and members of the public will be able to see which services continue to allow patients to suffer the indignity of mixed sex accommodation."

My emphasis - promising transparency and the importance privacy, dignity or safety on NHS wards.

How times have changed!?

ETA https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10982566.amp

There’s a January 2009 speech saying much the same thing. Various different SofS’s for Health got a lot of mileage out of it as an issue.

Thanks for the link @GreenAllOver. I was particularly interested in the info near the end where the CQC had figures on the reported sexual assaults and rapes in mental health units. My DSis is now retired but spent 30 years as a mental health professional both on wards and in the community. In her experience such assaults were always recorded on Datix so presumably, somewhere there would be both local and national records? Does anyone know where? Would it be worth an FOI request?

Alan Johnson?

@GreenAllOver I've popped the SoS dates on to the timeline

Yes Lansley was telling the plebs that
"Patients and members of the public will be able to see which services continue to allow patients to suffer the indignity of mixed sex accommodation." But before May I bet any Trust Director you'd ask would have said the same thing. It wasn't true then and it still isn't true now. My Trust still has, and always had, patient information leaflets saying 'you will be cared for in a single sex bay' although the policy (ahem, now quietly taken down from the intranet) always said transpeople could self ID where they were put.

Lansley knew full well that the policy was being badged as single sex but was actually single gender. It was pointed out to him at at least one Dept of Health meeting re the policy that the name was misleading, but he decreed they kept calling it single sex 'to aid public understanding '. Actually, to aid our misunderstanding that single sex wards weren't single sex wards.

@GreenAllOver, just finished reading the two Medium articles and they are Something Else. (Note to everyone else - they are worth a read.)

My gods and this was 2017/2018? And here we are, nearly 10 years down the line and still dealing with this insanity?

@KnottyAuty upthread there was an ask for any particularly egregious and potentially newsworthy examples. Months ago before we got going on the audit I read up some policies and guidelines on my local acute trust website and they had a zero tolerance of any patient potentially misgendering/harassing a trans staff member, describing it as a hate incident. Unfortunately looking now the information has gone, a link I had is broken so it has been removed from the public facing pages. It wasn't a trust that I audited but might be worth a look to see if it was picked up by whomever did do it - Sherwood Forest Hospitals

Could I be allocated a trust pl