But Lord Darzi said the labour government was committed to single sex accommodation whereby wards are divided into male and female bays by fixed partitions.

Labour promised to end mixed-sex accommodation in England by 2002, but that has still not been met. Campaigners have called for single-sex wards, saying fixed partitions do not give patients enough privacy.

Lord Darzi, a practising surgeon who is currently conducting a review of the NHS in England, told the House of Lords single-sex accommodation should be the “norm”.

“The only way we’re going to have single-sex wards within the NHS is to build the whole of the NHS into single rooms. That is an aspiration that cannot be met.”

But his claim drew an angry response from patient groups.

Katherine Murphy, from the Patients Association, said: “We want to see entirely single sex wards, not accommodation.

“Otherwise patients still have to share bathroom and toilet facilities with members of the opposite sex, and will have members of the opposite sex walking past them on their way to use these facilities.”

Ministers were insisting as recently as November 2006 that 99% of patients were being seen in single-sex accommodation.

But a report by chief nursing officer Christine Beasley last year – commissioned after patient surveys cast doubt on the claims of ministers – showed 15% of hospitals needed more help achieving this.

From:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7213836.stm

On Dec 28, 2007 Health Direct posted confirmation of another labour lie in Labour U turn on mixed sex hospital wards. Labour has abandoned its key manifesto pledge to eliminate the controversial practice of mixed sex wards, it has emerged.

The U-turn comes after more than a decade of Government promises, made at the 1997 election and repeated in 2001, to bring an end to male and female patients sharing facilities in NHS hospitals.

Figures reveal that 31 pc of NHS trusts admit to having fully mixed wards – without any form of partition

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.