Use of mixed sex wards hits a six-year high

MORE than 11,000 patients were made to sleep on mixed-sex wards in 2017 – a six-year high.

A total of 1,523 were placed on such wards in December alone, twice as many as during December 2016.

This month, hospitals have been given the green light to mix patients to help ease winter pressures.

However, official figures yesterday showed the number of mixedsex ‘breaches’ – when a patient is put on a ward with the opposite sex, not including intensive care or high dependency units – had soared even before the rules were temporarily relaxed.

Campaigners say the wards are dehumanising. Patients are forced to share bathrooms with the opposite sex, wearing little more than nightclothes or hospital gowns.

The Government promised to end the so-called wards of shame in 2010 following a long-running Daily Mail campaign.

It introduced £250 fines for hospitals for every mixedsex breach and initially the figures started to fall. But they have been climbing steadily since 2015 as overcrowded hospitals are forced to put patients wherever they can.

There were 11,235 breaches in 2017, up from 7,154 in 2016 and more than double the 4,259 recorded in 2015.

A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘ Since 2010 we’ve reduced the number of mixed-sex accommodation breaches in the NHS from 12,000 a month to 1,523 in December and despite winter pressures, two-thirds of NHS trusts still reported zero breaches.’