Trans patients should use hospital spaces according to biological sex, NHS England confirms

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By Áine Fox, Press Association

Trans patients should be placed in single-sex hospital spaces according to their biological sex rather than their gender identity, updated NHS England guidance has confirmed.

This means hospitals can lawfully exclude patients who are trans women from female wards, and those who are trans men from male wards.

It says when this is not "clinically appropriate" then alternative arrangements should be made.

Updated guidance for NHS staff in England has also been published, which says single-sex facilities such as changing rooms and toilets should be used according to biological sex.

Under previous NHS guidance, trans patients could be accommodated on single-sex wards based on the gender with which they identified.

The publication of the updated guidance on Thursday comes just over two months after wider guidance on single-sex spaces written by Britain’s rights watchdog officially came into force, and 18 months since the Supreme Court ruling on biological sex.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) code had already confirmed a service must be used on the basis of biological sex for it to be classed as single-sex under the Equality Act.