Tens of thousands of hospital patients were forced to be in mixed sex wards last year despite Labour promises that men and women would be separated, new figures suggest.
The announcement came as the new coalition government revealed that men and women will no longer have to share facilities in English hospitals.

More than eight thousand breaches of Labour’s pledge to “virtually eliminate” mixed wards were reported in just half of England’s Strategic Health Authorities in the first quarter of this year, new figures show.

If the same level existed across the rest of the country it would mean there were more than 16,000 breaches in three months, equating to 64,000 cases a year.

Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, announced yesterday that the “indignity” of men and women sharing accommodation would be abolished, almost 15 years after Tony Blair made the same promise.

But men and women may still have to share wards, provided the hospital ensures that male and female patients sleep in separate areas and have their own washing facilities.

Labour committed in two manifestos to provide separate accommodation for men and women, except where it was in the interests of the patient not to do so.

They later decided to divide wards into same-sex “bays”, meaning same-sex accommodation could include men and women sleeping in separate partitions of the same ward.

But the new figures reveal that one in ten patients is still admitted to a mixed ward, while a third have to share bathrooms with members of the opposite sex.

The information suggests data is not being recorded consistently across the country and NHS organisations are continuing to place patients in mixed sex accommodation for “operational reasons”, the government claimed.

Under new steps announced by Mr Lansley, NHS organisations can be held accountable for failing to guarantee same-sex accommodation where there is no clinical justification.

From next January, any breaches of the guarantee will be reported regularly and commissioners will sanction NHS bodies which admit failing to meet the pledge.

For the first time the reports will be made publicly available, meaning patients receiving elective treatment can choose to avoid the worst-performing hospitals.

Mr Lansley told BBC Radio 4′s PM programme: “It should be more than an expectation, it should be a requirement that patients who are admitted should be admitted to single-sex accommodation.

“Patients should be in single-sex accommodation, meaning that all of their period that they are admitted they should be in a bed or a bay which only consists of people of the same sex.

“And they should be able to come and go, for example to all their washing and toilet facilities, without having to pass through a part of the ward or another ward where there might be people of a different sex… so to that extent they would have the kind of privacy and dignity people have a right to expect.”

He added: “Patients should not suffer the indignity of being cared for in mixed sex accommodation. I am determined to put an end to this practice, where it is not clinically justified.

“In the future, NHS organisations will have clear standards, spelling out when they should report a breach. Where NHS organisations fail to meet this standard, we will let the public know they have failed and we will strengthen the fines which may apply.”

Chief Nursing Officer Christine Beasley added: “Protecting the privacy and dignity of patients by eliminating mixed sex accommodation must be a priority for the NHS.

“Driving this change will be the publishing of statistics on mixed sex accommodation breaches by NHS trusts. This measure will allow patients to make better informed decisions about their care.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Thousands-of-patients-still-forced-to-stay-in-mixed-sex-wards

Tens of thousands of NHS workers would be sacked, hospital units closed and patients denied treatments under labour’s secret plans for £20 billion of health cuts.

The sick would be urged to stay at home and email doctors rather than visit surgeries, while procedures such as hip replacements could be scrapped.

The plans have emerged as health chiefs draw up emergency budgets that cast doubt on pledges by Gordon Brown to protect “front line services” in the NHS.

Documents show that health chiefs are considering plans to begin sacking workers, cutting treatments and shutting wards across the country.

The proposals could lead to:
* 10 per cent of NHS staff being sacked in some areas.
* The loss of thousands of hospital beds.
* A reduction in the number of ambulance call-outs.
* Medical professionals being replaced by less qualified assistants.

The plans are contained in a series of internal NHS documents uncovered by The Daily Telegraph.

The final details of the plans are not due to be announced until the autumn, well after the country has gone to the polls for the general election.

The Conservatives and health campaigners said the public deserved to know the true extent of cuts at their local surgeries and hospitals before voting.

Last year all English health authorities were ordered by Sir David Nicholson, the NHS chief executive, to reconsider their plans after the recession forced the Government to freeze health spending from April next year.

This left a ”black hole’’ of up to £20 billion in health budgets up to 2014, prompting the drawing up of new proposals by the 10 strategic health authorities (SHAs).

They had until Friday to submit their plans to Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary. He is under pressure from the Treasury to show how money will be saved to help bring down Britain’s record £167 billion deficit.

In Wednesday’s Budget, Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, repeated that the £20 billion would come through “efficiency savings” and not key services.

Documents produced by several of the SHAs show how the cuts are, in fact, expected to fall on hospital services.

In the South East Coast region, which covers Surrey, Kent and Sussex, up to £1.6 billion must be saved.

A document marked “restricted” and circulated among SHA board members suggests 10,000 of the region’s 100,000 NHS workers may lose their jobs. “The new financial environment demands that the trend in workforce growth must be reversed,” it said, adding bosses must reduce employee numbers by 10 per cent “or further”.

The document said staffing in the acute sector, covering hospitals, “can be expected to decline faster and further” than elsewhere.

Job losses will be “starting in the coming year”, it states. Mr Brown has repeatedly promised Labour will not start making significant cuts to public spending until 2011. A spokesman for the South East Coast SHA said the document was a discussion paper and not a final plan.

In London, which faces £5 billion in cuts, documents show managers believe up to £2 billion can be saved from community care budgets, which cover GPs’ surgeries. This would include “changing how patients get in contact with and receive services, such as through greater use of the internet and email”.

An internal presentation by NHS Yorkshire and the Humber, which spans Sheffield, York, Hull and north Lincolnshire, made similar suggestions. The SHA, which is expected to make about £2 billion in cuts, proposed directing more patients to “teleservices such as NHS Direct”. Meanwhile, £450 million could be saved in London by banning clinical procedures “that have little or no benefit to those receiving them, for example some joint replacements”.

NHS North West, which oversees Greater Manchester and Liverpool, is expected to make about £2 billion savings. It is preparing to close an A&E unit in Rochdale during evenings before scrapping it altogether next year.

In the East region, covering Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, up to £2 billion is to be cut. The SHA proposes shifting services out of hospitals and making social workers take over some treatments. It is estimated that savings of about £2.4 billion will need to be made by NHS West Midlands, £2 billion in the South West, £1.3 billion in South Central, £1 billion in the North East and £800 million in the East Midlands.

All the Department of Health spokesman could say- as a way of confirmation: “We will be clear with trusts that they must not make short term cuts that harm patient care.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7529454/Hospital-wards-to-shut-in-secret-NHS-cuts.html