Single-sex hospital wards "top of agenda" says NHS boss (From This Is Local London)

Single-sex hospital wards "top of agenda" says NHS boss

3:45pm Friday 30th January 2009 in News

TACKLING mixed sex accommodation is “top of our agenda” Buckinghamshire’s hospital chief has said – after Ministers threatened to pull funding from male and female wards.

Men and women sharing wards was “something we absolutely have to correct” Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust chief executive Anne Eden said.

Managers struggle to keep single sex wards at the outdated “tower block” at Wycombe Hospital, which bosses want to pull down for more suitable accommodation.

Yet the Government is to penalise authorities which do not provide single sex wards from April 2010.

Health secretary Alan Johnson said this week: “We will not foot the bill for care that has taken place in mixed sex accommodation.”

Ms Eden said: “We have worked hard to tackle this issue as best we possibly can across the organisation and it is easier to do it in some of our hospitals than others.

“It is fair to say we do continue to have problems in the Wycombe tower block although it is fair to say also that the nurses manage it the best they possibly can.”

She said: “It absolutely is the top of our agenda.”

Chairman Graham Ellis said: “This is clearly on the agenda, this is on [the Government’s] screen, it is not for later, it is for now.”

The trust last year laid out a plan to sell off half the site and demolish the tower block for modern, single-sex facilities. No further details have been given.

From April 2010 trusts will face “serious financial consequences” unless there is an “overriding clinical justification” for mixed sex wards, the Department of Health said on Wednesday.

It has set aside £100m for trusts to make the changes needed, which the trust has said it will bid for.

Mr Johnson said: “People often feel at their most vulnerable when they are in hospital and being cared for in mixed sex accommodation can be deeply distressing.

“These measures will help to ensure that patients can be treated with the dignity and privacy they rightly expect.”