Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the processes that NHS trusts use (1) to arrange and specify facilities for transgender patients, and (2) to take into account the needs of other patients who may be sharing facilities with transgender patients.

No assessment has been made of the process used by National Health Service trusts for arranging these facilities nor the provision of single sex wards.

We expect all NHS trusts to follow all aspects of NHS England and NHS Improvement’s guidance Delivering same-sex accommodation, which sets out the small number of clinical circumstances where mixed-sex accommodation can be justified and also allows, in Annex B, for people to be allocated to wards according to their presentation, such as their preferred dress and pronouns . A copy of the guidance is attached. NHS England and NHS Improvement are currently reviewing this guidance, including whether the Annex is consistent with the provision of single sex wards.