No mixed-sex breaches in two-thirds of NHS wards

Figures from the Department of Health show that almost two in three NHS acute trusts did not breach rules on placing people of different sexes in the same wards during May 2011.

The Mixed-Sex Accommodation series is an Office for National Statistics data set that shows the number of wards on which people of both gender are placed to sleep without good reason for mixing the two.

In the latest update, 62 per cent of those which provided data said they had not breached the rules.

While acute trusts are not the only providers of information included in the series, they account for 99 per cent of all breaches.

In all, 2,011 breaches were recorded during May, down from 2,660 in April for hospitals across England.

This is the sixth month that data has been collected, standardised and published; the May report was accompanied by a revised update for the statistics released in March.