New single-sex rules for NHS in weeks, Wes Streeting says
NHS bosses will get new guidelines on single-sex spaces within weeks, the Health Secretary has said.
Wes Streeting warned health managers they must uphold the law after a major Supreme Court ruling declared trans women are not women.
Current NHS guidelines have to be scrapped because they allow trans people to be accommodated based on how they dress, their names and their pronouns.
“We’ll be issuing guidance in the coming weeks before the summer,” he told the Sun on Sunday.
Concerns have been raised that some hospital managers will try to defy the ruling.
But the Health Secretary said: “We wouldn’t tolerate the NHS breaking the law or regulations in other areas and it won’t be tolerated here.”
Mr Streeting wants trans people to be treated in “private spaces” in NHS hospitals.
Pressed on whether that will cost the NHS money, he said it was a “tiny number” of people from the trans community who might be admitted to NHS services.
He added: “It’s not beyond the wits and means of the NHS to make sure that trans people are treated with dignity and safety in a space that is suitable for them.”
Mr Streeting also told the Sun on Sunday female staff must have their own spaces to change into scrubs – in a major victory for campaigning nurses.
“Single sex spaces for women are really important and that also applies to NHS staff,” he said.
Eight nurses from Darlington are taking the NHS to court in October in their bid to stop a trans colleague using their changing room.
Mr Streeting said: “I want to make sure that the NHS is upholding the sex based rights of women who work for the NHS as well as women who use the NHS…I don’t want to see a situation where NHS staff are having to drag their employers through courts and tribunals to uphold their rights.”
The NHS has been a major battleground in the war over female spaces.
And the Equality and Human Rights Commission issued interim advice on how organisations should interpret the ruling.
It tells hospitals, shops and restaurants trans women must not be allowed to use women’s facilities like loos. But trans people must not be left without any facilities to use.
It says in schools, pupils who identify as trans girls (biological boys) should not be permitted to use the girls’ toilet or changing facilities.
And pupils who identify as trans boys (biological girls) should not be permitted to use the boys’ toilet or changing facilities.