Labour has failed to stop mixed-sex NHS hospital wards despite promising to do so for 12 years, the Health Secretary Alan Johnson has admitted.

Labour has failed to stop mixed sex wards, admits Health Secretary Alan Johnson
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Mr Johnson told a meeting of senior NHS executives that ministers had "got it wrong" and "sane and rational arguments about why it can't be done no longer cut it", a regional health boss claims.

The Government promised before the 1997 and 2001 elections to end the practice of male and female patients being forced to share a ward.

Yet another fresh attempt to stop the practice is soon to be launched by ministers, according to the account of the meeting by Graham Eccles, the chief executive of the South East Coast Strategic Health Authority. Mr Johnson is expected to unveil a new initiative on the issue next week.

Last month data from the Conservatives disclosed that about one in seven of hospital trusts still used at least one open-plan mixed-sex ward. Curtains were still being to segregate patients in some areas, it was discovered."

If MPs wonder why voters are cynical, they need only consider the history of Labour's "promise" to get rid of mixed-sex wards in NHS hospitals.

Wards of shame
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"It is bad enough that patients already concerned about their health have to suffer the additional degradations and embarrassments that come with mixed-sex wards. It is intolerable that they must also put up with the continued pratings of Government ministers, who think that saying something is the same as doing it. Four times since Labour came to power this promise has been trotted out whenever a favourable headline has been sought. Ministers should either admit they cannot fulfil this pledge – or keep quiet until they have."

I suspect that if Ministers and MPs and their families had to use the NHS and get the same treatment as ordinary members of the public receive, that this deplorable situation would quickly be remedied.

More than three million NHS patients are still being admitted to mixed-sex wards each year despite repeated promises by ministers to end this.

Mixed-sex NHS wards for 3m patients

Extracts from the Telegraph:

"A study published by the Healthcare Commission has also found that hospitals were getting dirtier, fewer staff were always washing their hands before touching patients and a fifth of people who needed help with meals were still not getting it.

Its survey of 76,000 inpatients in England – the largest of its kind – measured hospitals on factors that included quality of care, dignity and respect, privacy, waiting times, complaints and quality and availability of information."

"Last year, almost 13 million people stayed at least one night in hospitals in England, meaning that up to 3.2 million were admitted to a mixed-sex ward.

Nearly a third of patients also reported having to use a bathroom shared with members of the opposite sex.

Medway NHS Trust in Kent was the worst in the country for mixed-sex wards, with a score of 54.83. The Cardio­thoracic Centre in Liverpool rated highest on 97.45.

Labour first promised to abolish mixed-sex wards in 2002 but after arguments over what constituted a ward or a sleeping area, Lord Darzi, the health minister and a practising surgeon, said single-sex wards were "an aspiration that cannot be met". "

Judge Timothy Clayson condemns mixed-sex wards

Judge condemns mixed-sex wards

Extracts from the Telegraph:

"A judge condemned the Government's failure to eradicate mixed-sex wards after jailing a man on Friday for a sex attack on an 82-year-old woman.

Have your say: What is your experience of mixed-sex wards? Hospital chief in superbug scandal demands £150,000 Dean Galley assaulted a patient suffering from dementia while they were on an A&E overflow ward which, under Government guidance, is allowed to be mixed sex." "Galley, 41, an alcoholic, of Halliwell, Bolton, was found standing naked close to the woman's bed after a care assistant heard her screaming, "Get off me". On Friday he was jailed for a minimum of 18 months after being convicted of sexual assault at Bolton Crown Court. He had previous convictions for child-sex offences, arson and wounding. Judge Clayson said: "This case clearly calls into question the wisdom of placing patients on mixed wards. It seems to me no reasonable person could be content with such arrangements."" "A spokesman for Age Concern said: "Many older people find mixed-sex wards embarrassing and uncomfortable, but in the most extreme cases, these wards could put vulnerable older patients at risk of sexual assault." Help the Aged said the wards were an affront to human dignity. Lesley Doherty, director of nursing at the Royal Bolton, said that it had complied with Department of Health guidance but was now trying to keep men and women in separate areas of wards."

Britain continues with mixed-sex wards despite widespread criticism

U-turn on mixed-sex hospital wards

Extract from the Telegraph

"Patients' charities have argued for years that mixed-sex wards are undignified, degrading and put women at risk of attack from male patients.

A number of female patients in recent years have been the victims of assault from men in mixed-sex wards.

Figures obtained by the Conservatives under Freedom of Information laws showed that nearly a third of hospitals are still treating men and women in the same wards.

This is almost double the amount stated in a report released in May by the Chief Nursing Officer.

Following inquiries by The Daily Telegraph, the Department of Health disclosed that eliminating mixed-sex wards is no longer an aim.

A DoH spokesman said: "We have to get away from this idea of single-sex wards. That is not what it is all about."

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Damning indictment of Britain's frequently lousy health service

NHS patients face humiliating treatment

From the Telegraph:

"Hospitals are still failing to treat people with dignity and respect as complaints reveal patients left unwashed, in soiled bedding and in humiliating open-backed gowns, the Healthcare Commission has said.

A third of complaints about the NHS relate to dignity, respect and nutrition in hospitals, the commission's 2007 "state of healthcare" report found.

Mixed-sex wards are still a major problem, despite Labour's manifesto pledges in 1997 and 2001 to abolish them.

The report also said that one in five patients who wanted help with eating did not get it, and others complained that food or drink was placed out of reach.

Examples of complaints over dignity included a lack of regular baths or showers, gowns that failed to protect patients' modesty and curtains being opened while a patient is receiving intimate care.

The 136-page report also called for improvements in care for children, action on hospital superbugs, better service planning and promotion of patient safety.

The report said one in 10 hospitals in England did not meet standards on patient privacy and confidentiality.

Half of patients in mental health wards and almost three in five with learning disabilities were treated in mixed-sex accommodation.

A third of patients admitted to hospital as an emergency were sleeping in mixed-sex areas and 30 per cent of in-patients had to share bathroom or shower areas with the opposite sex."

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Hospital patients are still suffering the indignity and embarrassment of being cared for on mixed-sex wards...

Thousands of NHS patients still facing ordeal of mixed-sex wards - ~Independent

Extract:

"Hospital patients are suffering the indignity and embarrassment of being cared for on mixed-sex wards - a decade after the Government pledged to abolish the practice. Almost one in five NHS trusts is continuing to treat patients admitted for routine treatment alongside members of the opposite sex in breach of government rules.

An inquiry by the Department of Health into the use of mixed-sex wards, to be published tomorrow, has found 31 NHS trusts out of 172 has failed to eliminate them.

Despite government pledges in the 1997 and 2001 Labour manifestos to phase out mixed-sex wards, the finding implies that thousands of male and female patients are still being cared for together, compromising their dignity and adding to the stress of their illness. Tony Blair said in a speech in 1996, as Leader of the Opposition, that it could not be "beyond the wit of government and health administrators" to eliminate mixed-sex wards.

The outcome of the inquiry, launched last December, is an embarrassment to Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, who has defended the NHS's record after being assured by NHS managers that 99 per cent of hospital trusts had abolished mixed-sex wards.

She ordered the inquiry after being forced on to the defensive last year by The Independent columnist Janet Street Porter whose account of the death of her sister, Patricia Balsom, from cancer provoked a public outcry.

Ms Balsom wrote a diary, published in The Independent last November, explaining in harrowing detail how her final days were blighted by the indignity of being cared for an a mixed-sex ward and Ms Street Porter described how she had been inundated with messages from people appalled that her sister could be treated so shabbily.

Callers besieged radio and television stations and charities including the Patients Association to give distressing accounts of stays in mixed-sex accommodation. One caller to The Independent, Janet Hollis of Stansted, Essex, described visiting her mother, aged 96, who died in Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge. "Having men wandering round in a state of undress is not what you hope to see. When you are in hospital, you are at your lowest ebb. You need privacy to protect your dignity."

Ms Hewitt ordered the chief executives of the 10 strategic health authorities in England to report back to her after it became plain the experience of patients did not tally with what health managers were telling her."

Further extract:

"The Patients Association said the finding of the inquiry confirmed its worst fears. Vanessa Bourne, chief executive, said: "It is extraordinary because it shows Patricia Hewitt was not being told the truth by the NHS. She should wonder what else she is being hoodwinked over." "

Strong criticism of the Mental Health Bill with particular regard to the care and treatment of children

Insane! Stop the Mental Health Bill - The Independent

Extract:

"The Independent on Sunday today urges all MPs to read the story of one child's treatment under Britain's current outdated and draconian mental health laws.

Jack Owen was just 16 when he was sexually assaulted by a male patient, verbally abused and locked up in a windowless cell on an adult psychiatric ward. His story, told here for the first time, is a damning indictment of Britain's mental health service.

Tomorrow, the Government will attempt to force through its mental health reforms - reforms that this newspaper opposes and which experts warn ignore the care and treatment needs of thousands of vulnerable children like Jack.

The IoS has been campaigning for nearly five years for the rights of people with mental health problems to be respected. The campaign has been backed by leading medical and psychiatric experts as well as figures from politics, the media and the arts. Lord Bragg described the campaign as: "Useful, important and corrective. There have been an awful lot of injustices and an awful lot of neglect. Exposing what is going on is very important.

Now we are calling on MPs to accept a series of amendments put forward by the House of Lords, which psychiatrists, mental health charities and patients have said would help to create laws fit for the 21st century.

These include the demand that children be treated in wards suitable for their age, not with adults, and be assessed by specially trained professionals.

Today we also publish figures from the charity Young Minds which expose the "national scandal" of how children as young as 12 are incarcerated with often extremely disturbed adults and end up more traumatised than when they went in for treatment.

The study found that one child every day is admitted to an adult mental health ward under section; that more than three-quarters of girls are detained on mixed-sex wards; that the average stay is at least one month; and that children face a postcode lottery over beds.

Kathryn Pugh, head of policy at YoungMinds said: "Unless changes are made in the law, children will continue to be at risk, and their chances of recovery seriously jeopardised.""

Healthcare Commission found 55% of mental care inpatients have to share sleeping accommodation or bathrooms with members of the opposite sex.

Census reveals wide extent of mixed sex psychiatric wards

Extract:

"Health inspectors will today publish conclusive evidence that the government's claim to have ended the scandal of mixed-sex psychiatric wards in the NHS was false, or at best misleading. In a census of all mental health establishments in England and Wales, the Healthcare Commission found 55% of inpatients have to share sleeping accommodation or bathrooms with members of the opposite sex.

Last year ministers rejected a report from the National Patient Safety Agency that recorded at least 19 rapes of mental health patients in England, and more than 100 other improper sexual incidents in psychiatric units in the previous two years.

Lord Warner, then health minister, said the allegations of rape were unsubstantiated. He told peers in July that 99% of NHS trusts providing mental health services met "single-sex objectives" that were set out in 2000, requiring all mental health units to provide totally separate sleeping, toilet and bathing accommodation for men and women. Lord Warner said mixed sex wards were an exception that might apply to "a very small number of patients, when admitted as an emergency".

But the census - conducted by the commission and government-funded mental health agencies - found only 45% of the 32,000 inpatients in NHS or private sector psychiatric wards on March 31 last year had the benefit of single-sex accommodation."