2,000 still on mixed sex hospital wards

Nearly 2,000 patients in the West Midlands have been forced to stay in mixed sex hospital wards, new government figures reveal today.

They show hospitals in the Black Country and Staffordshire are still placing patients in mixed sex accommodation — without any justification.

This is despite government plans to bring in a fining system to end the practice and ensure all patients are treated in privacy and with dignity.

A total of 1,947 men and women found themselves in a ward with patients of the opposite sex in December.

These included 178 patients at Walsall Manor Hospital, 124 people at Sandwell General Hospital and 27 at Stafford Hospital.

Figures for Worcestershire Royal Hospital showed 1,053 were put in mixed sex wards — the second highest number in the country.

Elsewhere, 208 patients were in the same situation at City Hospital in Birmingham, 326 at Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, 18 at Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield and two at Birmingham Heartlands.

The Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust did not submit data.

Other region trusts such as The Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs New Cross Hospital, reported no breaches.

From April, trusts will be fined £250 for every patient they keep in a mixed sex ward — and for each day they stay in such accommodation.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said today's data showed "an unacceptable level of breaches in which patient dignity has been compromised".

"By April, we expect every hospital to be capable of meeting the single sex accommodation standard," he said.