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.
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’.
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.
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’.
英國：不需要任何證明，就可以宣稱是跨性別並入住單一性別病房
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.’
不愧為挺跨第一線