Government ‘failing on mixed wards’

The government has not delivered on its assurances to abolish mixed-sex wards in hospitals, it has been claimed.

Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, has accused the government of speaking in public as if it were the case that such wards no longer existed, when in fact they have not been abolished.

The government has maintained that progress has been made regarding the provision of single-sex wards, while reporting that in some limited situations, including emergency accommodation in hospital, such provision is impossible.

However, Mr Lansley told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that government assertions of a near-complete achievement of the abolition of mixed-sex wards were erroneous.

“The Healthcare Commission just last month published a national patient survey which said 22 per cent of patients did not believe that was achieved. They thought they were in mixed-sex accommodation.”

He added that wards with men and women divided by partitions alone were insufficient for patients to consider themselves properly in single-sex accommodation.

Patricia Hewitt, health secretary, recently told GMTV that while single-sex wards were the ideal for hospitals, this was not always possible in older hospitals with larger wards, as this could result in the creation of two separate waiting lists for each gender.