Fury as NHS refuses to set timeline to impose new single-sex spaces guidelines

By SHAUN WOOLLER, EXECUTIVE HEALTH EDITOR Published: 18:27, 7 August 2026 | Updated: 18:27, 7 August 2026 The NHS has sparked fury by refusing to set out a timeline for implementing new guidance protecting single-sex spaces. Outdated rules that allow men who identify as women to be treated on female wards remain in place even though new guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission came into force on Wednesday. NHS England said it would publish its own policies and guidance on single-sex spaces ‘shortly’ but the delay was today dismissed as ‘insulting’ to patients and staff. Fiona McAnena, director of campaigns at sex-based rights charity Sex Matters, said: ‘The NHS has a duty to act now. ‘It knows the law. This prevarication is insulting to patients and staff alike. ‘NHS leaders should have acted when the law was clarified in April last year, and they have no reason to delay further. ‘This matters for everyone but especially for female patients, who can be particularly vulnerable in hospital. ‘There have been reported cases of men claiming to be women and then behaving extremely inappropriately in a women’s ward.’ Fiona McAnena, director of campaigns at sex-based rights charity Sex Matters, said: ‘The NHS has a duty to act now.' An NHS England source told The Times the delay was down to the Cabinet Office, which was ‘co-ordinating the response’ to the guidance across government. ‘Our new policies will be updated at around the same time as other government bodies,’ they said. But a Cabinet Office insider rejected the claim, stressing: ‘No one has been stopped from changing their policies; it’s been the government’s position that everyone should be updating their policies in line with the Supreme Court ruling and then using the code of practice to do so.’ Since last year’s Supreme Court ruling that the words ‘woman’, ‘man’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 referred to biological sex, NHS England has kept out-of-date transgender policies in place while reviews were carried out. Its ‘Delivering same-sex accommodation’ guidance continues to instruct staff to accommodate trans people ‘according to their presentation’. It states: ‘This may not always accord with the physical sex appearance of the chest or genitalia. ‘It does not depend on their having a gender recognition certificate or legal name change. ‘It applies to toilet and bathing facilities [in most circumstances].' Nurse Bethany Hutchison (right), who led a successful claim against Darlington Memorial Hospital over a male colleague who identified as trans using women’s single-sex changing rooms, urged the NHS to stop uncertainty by setting out ‘practical and legally robust policies’. A man identifying as a trans woman was jailed in June for performing a sex act in front of nurses at University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. The 62-year-old Falklands war veteran, now known as Paula Stanton, was deemed at risk of self-harm when taken to hospital, and pleaded guilty during a trial in which prosecutors used phrases such as ‘her penis’. Current NHS policy also says staff should side with teenagers over their parents if views over gendered accommodation conflict. It says: ‘In some instances, parents or those with parental responsibility may have a view that is not consistent with the child’s view. ‘If possible, the child’s preference should prevail even if the child is not Gillick-competent.’ Gillick competence is a legal test that allows children under 16 to make their own decisions about medical treatment without parental consent if they are judged mature enough to fully understand the implications. Bethany Hutchison, the nurse who led a successful claim against Darlington Memorial Hospital over a male colleague who identified as trans using women’s single-sex changing rooms, urged the NHS to stop uncertainty by setting out ‘practical and legally robust policies’. She told The Times: ‘The continued delay in issuing updated guidance is creating uncertainty for frontline NHS staff who are expected to make sensitive accommodation decisions every day. ‘Nurses need clear, practical and legally robust policies that reflect the current position following the Supreme Court ruling and the EHRC code, while ensuring that every patient is treated with dignity, respect and compassion.’ Some organisations have updated their rules in light of the ruling. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust’s transgender policy for staff says that single-sex toilets and changing rooms ‘must comply with the Equality Act’s interpretation of sex as biological sex’. Health secretary Yvette Cooper insisted in an interview on Times Radio that the NHS would follow the law when implementing single-sex provision. Asked whether trans women would be accommodated according to their biological sex, she said detailed guidance would be published shortly, but added: ‘The law’s the law. All of us need to follow the law. The law’s been very clear on this.’ An NHS spokesperson said: ‘The NHS will publish approved new guidance for the health service on single-sex accommodation shortly, in line with other public sector bodies. ‘In the meantime, hospitals should be acting within the principles set out in the EHRC code to ensure all patients are cared for with dignity and respect.’