Andrew Lansley uses protected NHS budget to axe mixed-sex wards

By Tim Montgomerie

The Daily Mail has the report:

"Mixed-sex hospital wards will be axed by the end of the year, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is to announce. Patients going in for elective surgery, where they know the date in advance, will be guaranteed a single sex ward or a private room... But dozens of hospitals still separate men and women with nothing more than a curtain. Thousands of patients are humiliated and embarrassed, with many forced to suffer the indignity of sharing bathrooms and toilets with the opposite sex. Mr Lansley will warn hospitals that they face fines - and public condemnation - unless they abolish mixed-sex wards. The Health Secretary will also demand that half the beds in new hospital wards are in single - bed rooms, to improve patient privacy and tackle the spread of killer superbugs in open wards."