10,000 patients on mixed wards

Figure up by 316% in 4 years

THE number of patients being put on mixed-sex hospital wards has soared by 316% since Jeremy Hunt boasted the scandal had “virtually gone”.

The Health Secretary said in October 2013 the indignity of sick patients being forced to sleep next to the opposite sex had all but ended.

But the Daily Mirror has found this is not the case, with patients enduring mixed-sex wards nearly 10,000 times in the past year. Lib Dem health spokeswoman Baroness Judith Jolly said: “This embarrassing failure is a sign of the intolerable pressure our health service is under.

“Under the Conservatives’ watch, we are seeing standards fall and more and more patients being let down.”

NHS trusts are fined £250 per patient per day for breaching the rules on single-sex wards.

But critics say Tory cuts mean hospitals are so busy they have no option. Our analysis of NHS England statistics found between October 2013 and September 2014, there were 2,340 mixed-sex ward breaches. From October 2016 to September 2017, it had gone up to 9,741. The latest figures were slipped out on Thursday – the same day as PM Theresa May’s high-profile meeting with EU chiefs.

Despite the soaring number of breaches, the Department of Health last night claimed the monthly figures were still lower than in 2010.

It said: “Since 2010, mixed-sex accommodation breaches are down from almost 12,000 a month to less than 1,000 in September this year.”

TORY promises to end mixed-sex wards in England’s NHS hospitals are empty when nearly 10,000 patients were forced to endure the indignity over 12 months.

The crisis-hit service’s financial problems might be over if it had received £10 every time a Conservative manifesto or politician – including PM’s David Cameron and Theresa May plus Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt – vowed to end the degrading practice.

That only a small minority of men and women are put on the same wards, embarrassed by the lack of privacy, is no excuse.

Cutting hospital beds and operating the NHS close to breaking point clearly put incredible strains on hospital managers, while fining trusts £250 per case is counter-productive.

We want a common sense approach to end mixed-sex wards. Now. Not next year or the year after. And if this task is beyond the Tories, let them make way for a government capable of implementing change for the better.