Transgender patients could be treated in private rooms in NHS hospitals to protect their “rights and dignities”, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said, in a plan critics have branded “outrageous”. The Times has the story.
The Health Secretary said NHS guidance on same-sex wards is being reviewed in light of the Supreme Court ruling that a woman is defined by biological sex under equalities law.
He said hospitals must find a “caring and compassionate” way forward that protects transgender patients while also upholding the “sex-based rights of women”, suggesting this could include providing separate spaces for trans people within hospitals.
Asked if transgender women will be treated on male wards and will use male changing rooms and toilets in the NHS, Streeting told LBC Radio: “No, what we want to do is make sure we have single-sex provision on wards in the NHS, and that’s based on biology, and to make sure that trans people have access to safe and dignified and respectful care.”
Under current NHS guidelines, drawn up in 2019, trans people should be accommodated according to the way they dress, their names and their pronouns, rather than sex. This means that, for example, a transgender woman, who was born male, could be placed on a female-only ward.
However, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has warned the NHS that it would be pursued if it did not follow new guidance that single-sex spaces should be defined on biological sex.
Streeting said “we can and must” uphold the “rights, the freedoms, the spaces for women as sex-based rights” while also upholding the respect and freedoms of transgender people.
Pressed on which wards transgender people will be treated on, he said: “It will very much depend on particular settings.
“The NHS is updating its guidance and what we would like to see is appropriate kinds of rooms and private spaces for trans people to be cared for in NHS hospitals.”
He said most people in the UK are “fair-minded and decent” and want transgender people to live with freedom, dignity and respect and “that’s what this Government wants too”.
On whether there could be transgender wards, he added: “It comes back to this question of scale and we’re talking about a relatively small number of people in our country anyway, and a tiny number of people who might be accessing a different range of NHS services at any one time.
“So I just think, on top of everything else that we’re dealing with, not just in the NHS, but also thinking about how you protect women’s spaces and protect trans people’s rights and dignities, let’s also keep some of these challenges in proportion.
“We are talking about a small, tiny number of people who might be in an NHS service on any given day.
“So I don’t think it is beyond the wits and means of leaders of NHS services across the country to find a caring and compassionate way through this.”
In the top-rated comment (with approaching 800 upvotes) beneath the Times article, infectious diseases consultant John Phillips brands the plan “outrageous”.
Speaking as an infectious diseases consultant this is outrageous. Single rooms in our older hospitals are like gold dust and must be allocated on the basis of clinical need. Will Wes Streeting demand a dying patient be evicted in their last hours to accommodate a man whose feelings might be a bit hurt? Or place a patient with open tuberculosis in a ward because a trans person having an ingrown toenail removed requests it? What about other protected characteristics? Can a Muslim refuse to be in a ward with Christians or a gay person refuse to be in a ward with straight people? Clinical areas must be managed on clinical grounds only. The Supreme Court has made it crystal clear that single sex areas accommodate people on basis of biological sex while other resources must be allocated on basis of clinical needs.
Worth reading in full.
Still, easy way to wangle a private room…
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Interesting inside look at the asylum system from this doctor;
”I am the clinical lead in an asylum hotel in the north of England. We’re right in the centre of town. Though we try to keep a low profile, that’s not always easy with 24-hour security guards in hi-vis patrolling the entrance. The building is modern, but it was never intended to house hundreds of people long-term. It’s starting to degrade quickly. My role is to provide a GP service within the hotel.
I have to be inexact about certain aspects – but let me tell you this: the Home Office is not focused on the details in any meaningful way. At the hotel where I work, the physical building is owned by a group of investors. The security is contracted to the lowest bidder for this kind of work. Day-to-day operations are run by a large housing management firm.
You have to comb their websites for any information about their activities in the area. The asylum-industrial complex is largely run by for-profit contractors, each leveraging their slice of the cake for further enrichment.
The space I work in is extremely secretive. Part of that comes from the housing companies making phenomenal profits from commodifying people. This is a business led by algorithms and obsessed with process. Several of these providers also run prisons, probation services and custody suites; there’s a hardness to their culture – it can be unkind and arbitrary.
In many ways, it’s like a prison: nobody has anything, so the only thing you have of value is your word. I’ve learnt never to promise anything I can’t deliver.
People are not always who they say they are. Most arrivals are undocumented, having disposed of their papers along the way. The Home Office assigns them a name and date of birth based on whatever they declare. People do this to reinvent themselves – they may have tried and failed previously under their original name, or they may be wanted overseas. There is no way to verify it. They are given a new identity and that becomes who they are in the UK. Some have already been granted the right to remain in other European countries and then left to try their luck here, where they have stronger family networks. I have met families who have been on the road for years.”
https://article.wn.com/view/2025/04/10/I_work_at_a_migrant_hotel_Even_when_residents_are_granted_as/
“What’s the difference between cigarettes and illegal immigrants?
You’re only allowed 200 cigarettes into the UK before the authorities start asking questions.” A Meme.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHV8-kSoG0h/?igsh=N3R1bmE0N3o5MTR4
Nigel’s got it sorted.
You can come here in vast numbers and within a few short years the towns you live in will start to remind you of home. It amuses me how potentates in far fling countries love the British immigration policy because it means that they can off-load their criminal classes here which cost a lot of money to contain at home. The British love of cheap labour and scraping the barrel and the race to the bottom is something to behold.
Is it a surprise that with every mention of a trade deal with India the first thing that comes up is allowing more of them to come here to the imperial nation they are supposed to hate? Maybe it is revenge….
How low do you want to go? Please stop. Is it the lure of that final sound in the bathtube when the last of the water goes gurgling down? Is it self-punishment for empire? Surely you can see the futility of money worship and how everything valuable lies outside of the realm of money. Cheap taxi drivers and delivery drivers. Cheap nannies and restaurant staff. Is it really worth it?