Mixed-sex hospital wards to be ended

Mixed-sex hospital wards are to be phased out of the National Health Service and patients will have the right to request a bed on a single-sex ward under a new version of the Patient's Charter to be launched today.

The charter will instruct hospitals to inform patients before they are admitted about the availability of beds on single-sex wards. In addition, separate lavatory facilities will have to be provided on existing mixed-sex wards. The move signals a reversal of a move to mixed-sex wards which began in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and was introduced to cut nursing costs and make the best use of diminishing numbers of staff.

It follows widespread complaint and lobbying, particularly from female patients distressed at finding themselves in beds alongside male patients and having to share washing and lavatory facilities with them.

A survey of hospital patients by the Patients' Association to be published today found that 75 per cent of respondents were against mixed-sex wards but many felt powerless to complain. Few hospitals or health authorities questioned by the association hada policy on mixed-sex wards.

The association yesterday welcomed the new charter inclusion but said it did not go far enough. Dr Patricia Wilkie, its chairman, said: ``This is a step in the right direction and it will certainly influence hospitals which have been thinking about goingdown this road on the grounds of cost.''

The charter gives no guarantee of a place on a single-sex ward. Dr Wilkie said that some people who have been waiting months for an operation may be forced to choose between a mixed-sex ward or a further delay until a bed is available on a single-sex ward.

Dr Wilkie said she had received hundreds of letters from women patients shocked and embarassed at being admitted with no prior warning on to a mixed ward. She says there are other related issues, such as proximity of beds, as more wards close and hospitals "pack beds like sardines" in a small space. "It is all about what is appropriate. Patients find it difficult to be dignified in their nightclothes, and they don't like talking about personal and intimate details when only a curtain is separating them from the next bed."