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| Mixed-sex wards to draw penalties | Mixed-sex wards to draw penalties |
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| NHS Trusts in England which fail to scrap mixed-sex accommodation will be subject to penalties as part of a fresh bid to "all but" eradicate such wards. | NHS Trusts in England which fail to scrap mixed-sex accommodation will be subject to penalties as part of a fresh bid to "all but" eradicate such wards. |
| Health Secretary Alan Johnson said hospitals would only be paid for the treatment of a patient on a mixed-sex ward if it was clinically justified. | |
| Some 15% of hospital trusts still use at least one open-plan mixed-sex ward. | |
| But while there will be penalties, hospitals will at the same time receive cash to overhaul accommodation. | But while there will be penalties, hospitals will at the same time receive cash to overhaul accommodation. |
| I want to make it clear today that mixed sex accommodation is no longer tolerable in the NHS Alan JohnsonHealth Secretary A "privacy and dignity fund" of £100m is to be made available immediately to enable health authorities to make the necessary adjustments to their accommodation over the next six months. | |
| But if patients are still being accommodated for no good reason on mixed-sex wards by the financial year 2010-2011, hospitals will not receive payment for the treatment provided, Mr Johnson said. | |
| Defining terms | |
| Under the existing rules on mixed-sex accommodation, patients should be kept in bays divided at the very least by fixed full-height partition. | |
| Patients should also not be expected to walk past others of the opposite sex to go to washing or toilet facilities. | |
| Intensive care and A&E wards are for practical reasons not included, and the Health Secretary stressed again in his address to NHS Chairs that there are "good, clinical reasons why men and women are cared for in the same accommodation". | |
| But he added: "I want to make it clear today that mixed sex accommodation is no longer tolerable in the NHS, except when it is absolutely clinically necessary." | |
| Labour pledged to end mixed-sex accommodation in both its 1997 and 2001 manifestos. | |
| But after being granted a Freedom of Information request, the Conservatives revealed earlier this month that 15% of trusts were still just using curtains to divide patients of the opposite sex. | |
| Michael Summer, of the Patients' Association, said pledges to end mixed-sex accommodation had been made many times before and "nothing has happened". | |
| "If it really does happen this time we would welcome it, but we just have to wait and see. | |
| "It is one of the issues which really concerns us and one which really upsets patients - and particularly women." |