The eliminating mixed-sex accommodation: your privacy, our responsibility campaign was aimed at eliminating mixed sex accommodation from hospitals in England by 2010.

Over the last year, NHS Suffolk has demonstrated the elimination of mixed-sex accommodation, apart from where this is clinically justified. All staff have had a vital role to play in meeting this objective and giving all patients the best possible experience during their time in hospital.

Eliminating mixed-sex accommodation in practice

The need to deliver the highest standards of privacy and dignity applies equally to all areas of healthcare. Achieving these high standards will usually mean ensuring that men and women do not have to sleep in the same room or share toilet and washing facilities. Patients should not have to pass through areas used by the opposite sex to reach their own facilities. Same-sex accommodation can be provided in:

• same-sex wards, where the whole ward is occupied by men or women only
• single rooms, or
• mixed wards, where men and women are in separate bays or rooms

At times, there may be no alternative to treating men and women together, for example in high-tech care (with one-to-one nursing), very specialised care or urgent/emergency care. Staff  look at the impact on all patients involved, and patients are moved to same-sex accommodation as soon as possible when it is clinically safe to do so. Privacy and dignity to all patients/client is applied at all times, with zero tolerance policies supporting this philosophy.

NHS Suffolk is commited to ensuring that mixed-sex accommodation is eliminated within all NHS Suffolk provision.

We have recently assessed the compliance of the hospitals in Suffolk with regard to eliminating mixed-sex accommodation.

NHS Suffolk confirms that all its hospitals and provider services meet the relevant standards, links to the website declarations are accessible below:

·        Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust

·        West Suffolk Hospital NHS Trust

·        Suffolk Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

·        Suffolk Community Healthcare