Row as patients who only ‘temporarily’ identify as female can share single-sex NHS
The Health Secretary faced pressure tonight to scrap ‘shocking’ rules that mean patients who only occasionally identify as women can share female-only hospital wards.
NHS guidance uncovered in a major audit by the Daily Mail means transgender women can use the facilities they wish, regardless of whether or not they have had surgery or legally changed sex.
Many hospitals make it clear that patients need only ‘temporarily’ present as women to enter female-only bays and bathrooms.
One NHS trust’s policy states: ‘People who are not living full-time as a woman have been on women’s wards with no issues at all.’ Some liken anyone who objects to the policy to racists, while others make it clear that if another patient complains, it is they who must move rather than the trans person.
The Health Secretary faced pressure last night to scrap ‘shocking’ rules that mean patients who only occasionally identify as women can share female-only hospital wards.
Campaigners warn it makes a mockery of strict rules that ban hospitals from placing men and women in neighbouring beds.
They want Health Secretary Steve Barclay to take urgent action after a review was launched two years ago amid concerns about the policy but never published.
An investigation by this newspaper into the extent to which ‘woke’ gender ideology has infiltrated the NHS can also reveal:
- Midwives are told that they could harm trans people who have given birth by calling them ‘mother’.
- Staff are given long lists of baffling terms from ‘abrosexual’ to ‘third-gendered’, some of which have been written by lobbying groups such as Stonewall.
- Official policies mis-state equality law, experts say, as well as ignoring women’s rights and gender-critical beliefs.
Tonight, leading campaigner Maya Forstater, executive director of Sex Matters, said: ‘These policies are shocking. They put the health of transgender patients at risk, and undermine the rights of everyone else.
‘If there is one place where it should be obvious that no one should be confused about a person’s sex it is when they are receiving medical treatment.
‘These hospital policies have clearly been developed by ideologically committed staff who have captured the process.’
She urged the Health Secretary to ‘take responsibility’ and rewrite guidance on mixed-sex accommodation as well as ‘provide clear guidance to the NHS on what the law actually says’.
Heather Binning, founder of the Women’s Rights Network, said: ‘In 2010 the Government announced it would end the “indignity” of mixed-sex wards, yet wards that are organised by gender may well become mixed sex in the current climate.’
Patients who temporarily self ID can access female only spaces
Former Cabinet minister Ranil Jayawardena said: ‘For any part of the NHS to issue diktats to their staff that put biological males on female wards is wrong. Single-sex wards should be just that.’
Mixed-sex wards were banned in 2010 in order to protect patients’ dignity, until the rules were quietly relaxed in 2020. But Annex B to NHS England’s 2019 guidance on ‘Delivering same-sex accommodation’ made it clear that placing transgender women – who were born male – on a female-only ward did not count as a breach.
It stated: ‘Trans people should be accommodated according to their presentation: The way they dress, and the name and pronouns they currently use.’
In 2021 the then health secretary Sajid Javid vowed to look again at the guidance after it emerged that some trusts even allow male sex offenders on to female-only wards. But the review by Chief Nursing Officer Ruth May has never been published, with ministers saying recently a revised version of the guidance will be ‘published in due course’.
A source close to Mr Barclay said: ‘The Health Secretary shares the intense frustration of NHS patients and the wider public at the slow progress on single-sex wards. Updated guidance needs to be published as soon as possible. It is vital the privacy, dignity and safety of all NHS patients is protected.’
Mixed-sex wards were banned in 2010 in order to protect patients’ dignity, until the rules were quietly relaxed in 2020
In 2021 the then health secretary Sajid Javid vowed to look again at the guidance after it emerged that some trusts even allow male sex offenders on to female-only wards
The Mail sent Freedom of Information requests to every NHS hospital trust in England, with 65 responding to confirm they allowed transgender patients to use the facilities of their choice.
They also supplied policies making clear there were no restrictions on who counted as a transgender patient. Anyone presenting as such does not have to show they live in their acquired gender, have taken hormones, had surgery or obtained a Gender Recognition Certificate to legally change sex.
Many include a reference in the national guidance telling trusts to provide flexible treatment to all transgender people ‘whether they live continuously or temporarily in a gender role that does not conform to their natal sex’.
Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust says: ‘If the patient is in a female role (or vice versa) in their everyday life then that is how they should be treated on admission.’ It adds: ‘For example people who are not living full-time as a woman have been on women’s wards with no issues at all.’
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust says: ‘Some people prefer to occasionally wear clothing that is not usually worn by the gender with which they identify for reasons of comfort. Clinical decision-making should not be affected by things like the clothes someone wears, their voice or their hairstyle.’
It says that if there is a clash with other patients, ‘the focus should be on the person exhibiting prejudicial behaviours not the person affected by them’.
The Walton Centre, a specialist neurology unit in Liverpool, admits that ‘patients may have difficulties accepting the service user’s gender identity’, but said this could put the transgender person at risk and ‘may involve reporting unacceptable behaviours as a hate crime to the police’.
The Department of Health said: ‘Patients should not have to share sleeping accommodation with others of the opposite sex and should have access to segregated bathroom and toilet facilities, and we expect NHS trusts to comply with these measures.’ Sources said the Government was committed to protecting single-sex spaces.