New guidance for hospitals to preserve single-sex wards

NHS hospitals will be given guidance on preserving single-sex wards and businesses offered reassurance on the legality of keeping male and female toilets, under plans by the equalities regulator to help public and private sector bodies resist pressure from pro-trans activists.

Baroness Falkner, the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has told ministers that the body is acting on a request by MPs to issue hospitals, schools, prisons and private firms with “worked examples and guidance” which will “provide clarity … on the provision of single-sex services”. It is expected to issue the guidance early next year.

The regulator’s intervention follows a series of highly charged controversies over the use of women-only facilities by trans hospital patients, prisoners and staff.

A Whitehall source said that “one of the biggest concerns of women’s groups is ensuring prisons, refuges, changing rooms and hospital wards are kept single sex”. The new guidance will be something that public and private sector bodies “can use to show they are adhering to the law”.

The Sunday Telegraph has previously revealed that NHS Trusts across the country have issued guidance that says patients should be admitted based on the gender they identify with and therefore can choose which ward, lavatory and shower facilities they use.

Some trusts have labelled those patients who express discomfort as transphobic, compared them to racists in official guidelines and ordered staff to report them to police for hate crimes.

The EHRC’s plan to clarify the law is intended to strengthen the hand of organisations concerned that they will face legal action if they attempt to retain women-only facilities or groups.

In its 2019 report, the Commons women and equalities committee urged the EHRC to issue the new updated guidance.

Lady Falkner, who took the helm of the EHRC last year, is now understood to have written to Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary and equalities minister, setting out her intention to draw up the guidance by early next year.