Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the timeframe is for the ending of mixed sex wards in mental health facilities.

Men and women should not share hospital accommodation and we have cut mixed sex accommodation breaches by over 85% since 2010.

The Independent Review of the Mental Health Act recommended that the physical environment of inpatient mental health wards needs to be improved and that the definition of single sex accommodation should be tightened up to ensure a genuinely single sex environment with separate access to any shared daytime space. The NHS Long Term Plan also recognised that capital investment is needed to upgrade the physical environment for inpatient psychiatric care but that this would be subject to the next capital review.

We will publish a White Paper in early 2020 that will set out the Government’s response to the Review’s recommendations and we will bring forward a Mental Health Bill to amend the Act when parliamentary time allows.