Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government why the Collection of Client Level Adult Social Care Data (No 3) Directions 2023 state that adult care providers must collect data based on gender, which is defined as "the gender the individual considers themselves to be", and not based on sex, given that sex, not gender, is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act; and what assessment they have made of providers' ability to supply single-sex services if data on sex is not collected.

Client Level Data is the first national collection of individual social care records, and this data is collected by the Department from local authorities, rather than care providers. The purpose of the 2023 Directions is to assist the Department in its functions, in particular by enabling key aspects of adult social care service provision to be analysed and reported on at a national level. Local authorities are required to collect information about gender, but that does not preclude them from collecting other information from service users such as on sex, including where this is necessary for them to discharge legal obligations.

The Department has not made an assessment of care providers’ ability to supply single-sex services. We expect Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulated care providers to adhere to the CQC’s fundamental standards, set out in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, which require service users to be treated with dignity and respect. The CQC’s guidance on this legislative framework says that “When providing intimate or personal care, providers must make every reasonable effort to make sure that they respect people's preferences about who delivers their care and treatment”. This may include requesting staff of a specific sex.