East Sussex hospital trust found to be breaching single-sex ward rules

Mixed-sex wards were banned in England in 2010 but last November saw the highest number of breaches of this rule for any November on record.

More: NHS England slammed for relaxing single-sex hospital rules after fines for breaches were quietly dropped

A breach is recorded every time there is unjustified mixing which is when a patient is placed in sleeping accommodation with a member of the opposite sex.

Sleeping accommodation is where patients are cared for on beds or trolleys, they don’t have to stay overnight.

Justified mixing doesn’t count as a breach and this is if there is a clinical need, for example if the patient needs to be admitted to critical care.

Data from NHS England has worked out the breach rate by looking at the number of breaches per 1,000 finished consultant episodes (FCE).

FCE is the NHS measure for patient numbers. An FCE is a period of time a patient is admitted under one consultant within one healthcare provider. One FCE starts every time a patient is transferred to a new consultant.

This breach rate is worked out so we can fairly compare small and large NHS trusts.

East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust – which covers the Eastbourne DGH and the Hastings’ Conquest – had 19 breaches with 11,285 FCEs, meaning there was a breach rate of 1.7.

For England overall, the breach rate average was 1.4.

The trusts with the highest breach rates were:

Wye Valley NHS Trust – 67.7

Medway NHS Trust – 47.6

East Cheshire NHS Trust – 21.6

Out of the 214 trusts, 162 had no breaches.

Rachel Power, chief executive of the Patients Association advocacy group, said rule breaches may have been understandable during an emergency, if mixing sexes was ‘a viable route to saving lives’.

However, she said the NHS must now aim to restore services to pre-pandemic levels.

Ms Power said, “Permanently downgrading services for patients is not just unacceptable but, if it is snuck through in a quiet contractual change without even asking patients what they think, utterly outrageous.

“Mixed-sex wards are an affront to patients’ dignity, and outside of emergency conditions the NHS must be renewing efforts to eliminate them, not giving up.”

More: Hospitals in England broke single-sex hospital ward rules thousands of times in November