NHS Guidance Allows Male Patients, Including Sex Offenders, in Female-Only Wards

UK — England. On August 2, 2021, The Telegraph reported that it had analyzed policies from over 20 National Health Service (NHS) Trusts, and found they have issued guidance specifying that patients can choose the ward, toilets and shower facilities that align with their ‘gender identity’.

Those who complain have been labelled ‘transphobic’. One hospital group previously withdrew treatment from female patients who did not accept male individuals being placed on women-only wards. A mental health trust has suggested that women who object should be put in seclusion and long-term segregation.

Guidance also states that male sex offenders are to be placed on women-only wards if they choose, and that “risk should be managed”.

“Male-born sex offenders who self-identify as women can be placed on female-only NHS wards, Devon, Oxford, Notts hospitals tell staff that criminal history should be part of risk assessment when placing male-born people on female-only wards”#SexNotGenderhttps://t.co/p6av6UlyrT

— Obsolesence (@Obsolesence) August 2, 2021

These policies go against the Department of Health order that hospitals must provide single-sex wards, and medical staff have warned that they are in breach of their code of conduct. In fact, the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire NHS Trust did not implement these transgender toolkits after their Equality Impact Assessment found “callous” disregard for women’s safety.

Nurses who object have reportedly lost their jobs, and staff are now too scared to raise any safeguarding issues. As one nurse reported to The Telegraph:

In-patients are often frail, elderly and confused and we as nurses have a duty to protect them. They are not being safeguarded and they are not getting the dignity and the privacy they deserve. The public believe that we have single-sex spaces for our most vulnerable, our mothers, our grandmothers, but it is simply not true. NHS wards are replicating what is happening in jails.

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, chair of Parliamentary campaign group Children and Women First, has written to the Government calling for it to suspend the NHS Guidelines which she says form the basis of the Trust policy changes. Her all-party group has been collecting evidence from patients and medics on the impact of creating mixed-sexed wards and has been informed of cases including rape, males having to be removed from wards for masturbating, people being reported to police for hate crimes, and nurses losing their jobs.

Please listen to @Baroness_Nichol and hear the reality of risk, violence, lost dignity and privacy and confusion and the jobs lost by people who speak up and the fear of those NHS staff who are silenced.

Be brave and take action @sajidjavid https://t.co/CT4yIri62r

— Stoat 🟥 Ermine Amies 🟥 #NiniManumua #Nini (@StoatlyL) August 3, 2021

ACTION: Write to your NHS Trusts to object to these policies. @sleepysusan has created a draft letter individuals can use.

If this outrages you, here is a draft letter that you can use. 100% of rapes and 95% of sex offences are committed by men, there’s no evidence trans-ID changes that, & anyway, sex offenders will use the loophole. Please credit me if RT’ing etc – thank you! https://t.co/A0pL2SABUp https://t.co/F81TGJfj9I

— Susan “The Actual Susan” McDonnell 💜🤍💚 (@sleeepysandy) August 3, 2021