Mixed sex wards
One of the key markers about the quality of patient care in local hospitals is that men and women are not placed next to each other whilst they are staying in hospital to ensure that their privacy and dignity is maintained. The Department of Health has given us clear rules about what is allowed and what isn’t. Ideally men and women should be in single sex accommodation. This can be provided in:
- Single sex wards - (the whole ward is occupied by men or women)
- Single rooms - with single sex bathroom facilities near by or ensuite
- Single sex accommodation within mixed wards – (bays or rooms that accommodate either men or women, not both, with designated single sex bathrooms within or next to the bay).
There are special rules for areas where patients are acutely unwell or require specialist care, like intensive care and coronary care, where it might not be possible to separate men and women in the same way.
If you would like to look at a more detailed reference to the guidance, please see the documents on the right hand side of the page.
All our local hospitals have put a lot of effort into ensuring that they are able to deliver on the promise to patients that they will not be in a mixed sex environment. It is often very difficult in old hospital accommodation that was designed and built a long time ago.
The way that hospitals are measured on whether they are delivering on this promise is the results from annual surveys of patients, where patients are asked about their perception of their care and whether they have been in a mixed sex environment at any point in their stay in hospital. This is an important measure as a patients perceptions of their care, may be very different from a health professionals interpretation of the Department of Health rules.
NHS Islington as a commissioner - or purchaser - of healthcare services for people in Islington is required to monitor the performance of the Whittington as its local trust against the rules on mixed sex wards, other PCTs will be monitoring their own local hospitals. The latest patients’ survey at the Whittington showed that 30% of patients reported sleeping in a mixed sex environment and 31% of patients surveyed reported sharing a bathroom with people of the opposite sex. The Whittington has agreed a target for this year to improve these scores so only 27% of patients report sharing sleeping accommodation and sharing a bathroom with the opposite sex.
All the scores for the last few years are show in this table:
| Healthcare commission patient survey | Sharing sleeping accommodation % reporting mixed sex environment |
Sharing bathroom accommodation % reporting mixed sex environment |
|---|---|---|
| Whittington 2006 survey | 31% | 39% |
| Whittington 2007 survey | 30% | 31% |
| Whittington hospital "stretch" target for 2008 | 27% | 27% |
| 2007 London average | 26% | 29% |
| 2007 England average | 24% | 30% |
As part of improving their performance the Whittington have completed a checklist to identify areas where they could improve, even given the very old condition of some of their wards, and an action of plan of how they are going to get there. As NHS Islington we will be working with them to monitor improvement over the course of the year and to assess whether they have met the target at the end of the year on the basis of their patient survey.
If you would like to see a full copy of the Whittington's audit and action plan, please click the links on the right hand side of the page.
Achieving the Mixed Sex Accommodation Action Plan
By the end of March 2010 all NHS trusts were asked as part of their operating plan submission to ensure that they comply with new guidance around mixed sex accommodation. Below is the action plan that has been agreed with the Whittington hospital to ensure that they are compliant with this guidance.