NHS must do more to keep male and female patients separate

May 10 2007

The NHS must do more to keep male and female patients separate is the message from a report out by England's chief nursing officer, Professor Christine Beasley, setting out a clear agenda to tackle mixed sex wards.

The report highlights the actions trusts should take to improve provision of single sex accommodation. It includes practical advice for trusts who are struggling to maintain this core standard of care, for instance: the layout of hospital accommodation should be reviewed, and where necessary improved to enhance segregation; trusts should set and publish local standards on single sex accommodation; and publish local targets for improvement where necessary.

To ensure this is a priority for trusts, the NHS chief executive has made the commitment to reduce mixed sex accommodation a core priority for the NHS for this coming year. Primary Care Trusts are now expected to ensure that the commitment to reduce mixed sex accommodation is implemented locally. Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt says:

"The NHS overall has an excellent record of treating people with dignity and respect. Year after year surveys show that the overwhelming majority of patients feel they have their privacy respected and they receive good care. However this report shows there is clearly still more work for the NHS to do to meet our commitment to eliminate mixed sex accommodation wherever possible.

"In addition to this report from the chief nursing officer, I have asked the Strategic Health Authorities to publish statements setting out the progress they are making. The NHS chief executive has also put this commitment into the Operating Framework for the NHS this year.

"This commitment is important but we need to be clear that the NHS will never turn a patient away because the right sex bed is not available."

The report highlights the difference between mixed sex accommodation and mixed sex wards, allowing services to be matched to patients needs. As long as men and women are sensitively cared for in separate bays or rooms, and have their own toilet facilities, then it can be appropriate for all patients with certain medical needs to be on the same ward, being cared for by the same team of doctors and nurses.

Professor Christine Beasley says in the report:

"The NHS holds the key to delivering privacy and dignity to all patients. Single sex accommodation is a core commitment in the NHS. It should be the norm in all elective care, when patients are pre-booked in for hospital treatment, and it remains the ideal for when treatment is unscheduled.

"But we also need to be realistic that sometimes mixing of patients will occur, such as in highly specialised departments such as Intensive Care Units and emergency admissions, where the need to admit a patient for care takes priority over the need for segregation. None-the-less, some attempt at segregation should always be made. I am asking the NHS to do more to ensure that when there is no choice but to mix patients, that more safeguards are taken to ensure that privacy is maintained."

1. The report is Privacy and dignity - A Report by the Chief Nursing Officer into Mixed Sex Accommodation in Hospitals. It is available on the DH website.
2. In November 2006, the chief executive of the NHS, David Nicholson, asked Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) to review mixed sex accommodation in their patches. Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt also asked the Chief Nursing Officer to produce a report on privacy and dignity in acute care and set out the areas where the NHS needed to improve..
3. What SHAs found was that most trusts were still reporting compliance, but that a small number were clearly finding it challenging. There are currently 28 trusts receiving support to secure improvements. Each SHA has been asked to publish details of the issues faced and the work they have been leading on this.
4. This years Operating Framework for the NHS specifically mentions the importance of single sex accommodation, placing a requirement on Primary Care Trusts to "ensure local implementation of the commitment to reduce mixed sex accommodation, and maximise privacy and dignity in situations where the need to treat and admit takes precedence over complete segregation."
5. The Department of Health is also making information available to the public that will help then make choices over where they seek their elective care. The NHS Choice website, which goes live in the summer, will contain information on privacy and dignity from the Healthcare Commission and from this year PEAT assessments. Over time, NHS Choice will build into a comprehensive site which will provide a wide range of information to support people making choices about their healthcare.