Tory manifesto commitment on mixed sex wards in tatters as incidents rise 50% in a year
Tory
manifesto commitment on mixed sex wards in tatters as incidents rise 50% in a
year
Theresa
May has been accused of abandoning yet another Tory Manifesto commitment as new
figures reveal the number of NHS patients in mixed sex wards running 50% higher
than this time last year.
New
figures published by NHS England today show that hospitals breached mixed sex
accommodation rules 1750 times during January and February this year – compared
to 1164 in the same period last year
Mixed
sex accommodation breaches have gone through the roof since Theresa May took
over last July – with 5618 in the 8 months since she became Prime Minister,
compared with just 4259 in the whole of 2015.
Ending
mixed sex wards was a key pledge of David Cameron’s Government in 2010 and the
2015 Conservative Manifesto included a promise to “continue to eliminate mixed
sex wards”.
Labour
said today’s figures showed that Theresa May’s decision to restrain NHS
spending was pushing hospitals to the brink.
Jonathan
Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, said:
“Tory
cuts to social care have seen hospital attendances rocket and now it seems
Theresa May has given up on her manifesto promise to eliminate mixed sex wards.
Patients expect dignity and respect when they’re being treated in hospital but
this Government is letting them down. The Government has overseen a
catastrophic collapse of patient standards and this failure on mixed sex wards
is yet another sign that England’s hospitals are at breaking point.
“The
Prime Minister needs to get a grip and explain what she is going to do to fix
the crisis which she has created. Every day that goes by brings more news of
patient care getting worse under this Government. Quite simply the Government’s
policy of underfunding and mismanaging the NHS has left hospitals on the
brink.”
Ends
Editors notes
·
The Conservative Manifesto 2015 (P37) said: “We
will ensure that English hospitals and GP surgeries are the safest in the
world, places where you are treated with dignity and respect. We will continue
to eliminate mixed-sex wards.”
“Mixed
sex wards virtually gone.” Jeremy Hunt, Speech to Conservative Party
Conference, 1 October 2013
http://www.ukpol.co.uk/jeremy-hunt-2013-conservative-party-conference-speech/
“The
number of hospital-acquired infections continues to go down and mixed–sex wards
have been virtually eliminated.” Jeremy Hunt, Hansard, 23 October 2012
“We said that we would sort out mixed-sex
wards and hospital-acquired infections—promise delivered.”
David Cameron, Hansard, 18 March 2015,
Column 756
·
Mixed sex accommodation breaches available here: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/mixed-sex-accommodation/msa-data/
·
There were 1040 breaches in January and 710 in
February – a 50% rise on the combined 1164 for the same two months last year.