Fury as NHS refuses to set timeline to impose new single-sex spaces guidelines

The NHS has been criticised for failing to give a timeline for implementing new single-sex spaces guidance, even though updated rules from the Equality and Human Rights Commission came into force this week. Existing NHS policy still allows patients who identify as transgender to be accommodated according to their "presentation" rather than biological sex, despite last year's Supreme Court ruling clarifying that "man", "woman" and "sex" in the Equality Act refer to biological sex. Campaigners say the delay leaves female patients and staff exposed and creates confusion for frontline workers making sensitive accommodation decisions.

NHS England said it would publish revised policies "shortly", with a source blaming the Cabinet Office for coordinating a government-wide response, a claim the Cabinet Office denied, saying bodies had been free to update policies since the Supreme Court ruling in April 2024. Sex Matters campaigner Fiona McAnena called the delay "insulting", citing reports of men behaving inappropriately on women's wards, while nurse Bethany Hutchison, who won a tribunal case over mixed-sex changing rooms at Darlington Memorial Hospital, urged clear, legally robust guidance. The article also cites a case in which a trans-identifying patient was jailed in June for a sexual offence at a Cardiff hospital, and notes current NHS policy directs staff to favour a child's wishes over parents' in accommodation disputes, even without Gillick competence.