Despite all the promises, more patients put on mixed-sex wards

SOARING numbers of patients are being forced to use mixed- sex wards once again, figures reveal.

Nearly 4,500 people had to share hospital facilities with the opposite sex in the last 12 months – a 70 per cent rise on the previous year.

Experts say staff are increasingly having to place patients wherever they find a bed because hospitals are so crowded.

The Government had pledged to end the scandal in 2010, after a Daily Mail campaign, and fined hospitals £250 a day for each patient put on a ward reserved for the opposite gender.

Although cases initially fell, they are rising again. Labour claims hospitals are dangerously overcrowded, increasingly with elderly bed-blockers.

These are patients well enough to be discharged who have to stay in until a care home place is found or help can be arranged in their own home.

Last month alone, Medway Foundation Trust in Gillingham, Kent, reported 130 mixed- sex ‘breaches’, when single-sex ward rules were broken – more than four a day. Gloucestershire hospitals noted 50 instances while there were 43 cases at Barts Health Trust in East London.

Andrew Gwynne, Labour public health spokesman, said: ‘Six years ago David Cameron promised to end this scandal. However, it is now clear his policies are failing patients and failing the NHS.’

Data from NHS England shows there were 4,447 breaches of the mixed-sex protocol in the year ending this month – 12 a day. This compares with 2,595 reported during 2014/15.

The Mail had long campaigned to end the scandal and repeatedly highlighted how thousands of patients were being made to share bathrooms and toilets with the opposite sex. Before the Government imposed the fines, as many as 19,000 patients were stuck in mixed-sex wards each year.

Many find it embarrassing and humiliating having to walk around in wards shared by the other sex when they are often wearing only nightclothes.

Research has also shown such patients are more vulnerable to attack: two in three assaults occur on mixed-sex wards.

Bed-blocking is currently at record levels and figures show that up to 8,500 patients a year are trapped in hospitals.

Some trusts are resorting to draconian policies under which patients are threatened with ‘eviction’ if they do not leave.

Managers at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals have begun sending families letters urging them to find care homes for their recovered relatives who are still on wards.

Labour’s Mr Gwynne said: ‘People admitted to hospital shouldn’t have to face the indignity of sharing wards with members of the opposite sex.

‘Five years of Tory cuts to social care have left hospital wards dangerously full and forced patients to be placed in mixed-sex accommodation.’

Health officials said the majority of breaches were at Medway, one of the worst-performing trusts and which is currently in special measures.

An NHS England spokesman said: ‘ The number of mixed sex accommodation breaches has fallen sharply over the last few years.’