“Outrageous” Labour Plan for NHS to Treat Trans Patients in Private Rooms

WILL JONES

Transgender patients could be treated in private rooms in NHS hospitals to protect their “rights and dignities”, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said, in a plan critics have branded “outrageous”. The Times has the story.

The Health Secretary said NHS guidance on same-sex wards is being reviewed in light of the Supreme Court ruling that a woman is defined by biological sex under equalities law.

He said hospitals must find a “caring and compassionate” way forward that protects transgender patients while also upholding the “sex-based rights of women”, suggesting this could include providing separate spaces for trans people within hospitals.

Asked if transgender women will be treated on male wards and will use male changing rooms and toilets in the NHS, Streeting told LBC Radio: “No, what we want to do is make sure we have single-sex provision on wards in the NHS, and that’s based on biology, and to make sure that trans people have access to safe and dignified and respectful care.”

Under current NHS guidelines, drawn up in 2019, trans people should be accommodated according to the way they dress, their names and their pronouns, rather than sex. This means that, for example, a transgender woman, who was born male, could be placed on a female-only ward.

However, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has warned the NHS that it would be pursued if it did not follow new guidance that single-sex spaces should be defined on biological sex.

Streeting said “we can and must” uphold the “rights, the freedoms, the spaces for women as sex-based rights” while also upholding the respect and freedoms of transgender people.

Pressed on which wards transgender people will be treated on, he said: “It will very much depend on particular settings.

“The NHS is updating its guidance and what we would like to see is appropriate kinds of rooms and private spaces for trans people to be cared for in NHS hospitals.”

He said most people in the UK are “fair-minded and decent” and want transgender people to live with freedom, dignity and respect and “that’s what this Government wants too”.

On whether there could be transgender wards, he added: “It comes back to this question of scale and we’re talking about a relatively small number of people in our country anyway, and a tiny number of people who might be accessing a different range of NHS services at any one time.

“So I just think, on top of everything else that we’re dealing with, not just in the NHS, but also thinking about how you protect women’s spaces and protect trans people’s rights and dignities, let’s also keep some of these challenges in proportion.

“We are talking about a small, tiny number of people who might be in an NHS service on any given day.

“So I don’t think it is beyond the wits and means of leaders of NHS services across the country to find a caring and compassionate way through this.”

In the top-rated comment (with approaching 800 upvotes) beneath the Times article, infectious diseases consultant John Phillips brands the plan “outrageous”.

Speaking as an infectious diseases consultant this is outrageous. Single rooms in our older hospitals are like gold dust and must be allocated on the basis of clinical need. Will Wes Streeting demand a dying patient be evicted in their last hours to accommodate a man whose feelings might be a bit hurt? Or place a patient with open tuberculosis in a ward because a trans person having an ingrown toenail removed requests it? What about other protected characteristics? Can a Muslim refuse to be in a ward with Christians or a gay person refuse to be in a ward with straight people? Clinical areas must be managed on clinical grounds only. The Supreme Court has made it crystal clear that single sex areas accommodate people on basis of biological sex while other resources must be allocated on basis of clinical needs.

Worth reading in full.

Still, easy way to wangle a private room…

Via The Daily Sceptic