NHS Policy Audit - working party -Thread #3

[KnottyAuty]

NHS Policy Audit - working party -Thread #3

Original thread #1 here:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5291237-nhs-policy-audit-working-party?page=1
Thread #2:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5322494-nhs-policy-audit-working-party-thread-2

This is a thread about “keeping the receipts” on NHS Policies prior to the Supreme Court ruling on 16th April 2025.

Our working theory is that there were no single sex spaces for NHS Staff or Patients in the entire country before that date, having all been removed by stealth.

We are aiming to prove this by auditing websites and policies for all the UK trusts and using the results to raise public awareness.

As well as recording what has happened historically, the information will form a baseline so we can check which Trusts comply or defy the judgement in due course...

We are working around the country region by region. If you fancy getting involved in a bit of grassroots feminism then please do join in to help!?

Each trust takes about an hour to research and you can upload online without giving any personal details away. Comment below and we can give you the link to an online survey - it changes for each region.

Thanks soooo much to all the vipers who have helped so far and @twoloons for doing a great job with the thread wrangling!

Just listened @KnottyAuty and am now following. So good to listen to! And what an achievement.

Big shout out to you! Queen of the FOUs! 😍

A crown I am proud to wear! Thank you so much.

gah sorry about the typo!

I listened. Well done.

WRT the policies, the teams audit along with Isla Bumba’s evidence illustrates that NHS England should write one set of model policies and each trust/organisation takes them. It’s the most effective way to update them quickly.

@KnottyAuty You were great! So clear and well briefed.

@Harassedevictee I agree, that’s how this all spread in the first place (from Dept of Health guidance, from the CNO) so it’s how it needs to be fixed.

Link pinched from another thread but also relevant here. This article follows on from a recent sample of FOI's that Knotty mentioned in the podcast.

www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/18793d091421432e

@KnottyAuty 👏👏👏 more brilliant coverage. You’re on fire

https://archive.is/OZ1z3#selection-2463.20-3284.11

archive version

Very glad to see this story out - it’s been a long wait and a total coincidence it aligned with the podcast!!

absolutely outrageous that west London claims this is lawful. And a joke about the legal advice. We should FOI that paperwork … if it’s a qualified lawyer their CPD is woefully out of date

The mind truly boggles that they claim to have taken legal advice in light of the SCJ. Maybe they should have just read the judgement- it’s lovely and clear

I suppose I am forgetting the upside down. The Trust identifies with having a legal policy so that must be what it is

Another spin off piece

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/28/legal-fights-arent-winning-the-war-against-trans-ideology/

https://archive.is/oEXsM

Take the news that the West London NHS Trust has instructed patients that they can use single-sex facilities based on their “legal gender”. Thanks to a few crafty gender-critical campaigners digging around in deliberately oblique and hidden policy documents, we now know that the NHS is defying the law by allowing gender recognition certificates (GRCs) to be used by transgender people to access single-sex spaces of their choosing, despite the Supreme Court ruling.

This is a serious issue. Among the institutions that the West London NHS Trust runs are St Bernard’s Hospital, which focuses on mental health services, and Broadmoor Hospital, which provides “assessment, treatment and care in conditions of high security for men”.

This policy means that a trans woman could turn up on a ward full of teenage women with eating disorders, or that a trans man could be placed in a facility with high-risk men. While the latter might be a little unlikely, there have been many cases of trans women choosing to use women’s services and women’s wards. In a vulnerable setting where women are in states of undress and distress on hospital wards, let alone suffering from serious mental health issues, the presence of a biological man is likely to cause further confusion and upset for some.

…

It is clear that legal fights won’t win this war – we need cultural change to pull us out of the trans weeds. That means ordinary men and women feeling emboldened to challenge gender ideology among their friends, families and colleagues. It must no longer be taboo to say that girls need their own privacy and dignity. It can no longer be a cancellable offence to assert that men can’t become women, no matter how much lipstick they put on. Only then will HR bods and officialdom feel powerless to defy what the rest of us know to be not only legally but morally right.

Brilliant coverage @KnottyAuty . 👏👏👏. Loved the podcast! What a long slog this all is. If only one policy across the entire NHS could be implemented how much more simpler keeping tabs would be. Same applies to so many other policies within the NHS. It could be a far more streamlined service instead of the awful postcode lottery system we have.

Here is the updated West London policy if anyone wants to see for themselves:

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/single_sex_spaces_gender_reassig_6/response/3440595/attach/html/4/P20%20Privacy%20and%20Dignity%20Same%20Sex%20Accomodation%20Policy.pdf.html

Unherd article today:
https://archive.is/uPHE8

Tiny segment on GB News last night. Apologies for the X link - I have tried to convert it to Nitter but user error I'm afraid. It was reposted by SEEN in Journalism if my link doesn't work. Meeting on Mumsnet gets an honourable mention.

https://x.com/gbnews/status/2071708745818652968?s=46&t=x4XTuGeBdZOKRROROFpUrQ

SEEN in Health have now published a link to the report we produced after auditing all the Trusts.

https://seeninhealth.org/posts/2026-06-28-uk-wide-audit-finds-nhs-trusts-still-relying-on-outdated-accommodation-policies/

The report was updated in May to reference the new 40 FOIs made to see if any Trusts had updated their policies one year on (this is how we found the West London policy) and the latest court judgments.

We thought the fab 40 auditors would be interested to see how each individual audit fed into this overview. We've not been able to share till now due to not having anywhere to link from. But now we have!

Brilliant!! Special shout-out to @Cantunseeit, who did a gargantuan amount of the work needed to put the report together from all of the auditors’ findings.

Absolutely - sterling work!

Totally agree with this - the work @Cantunseeit did for the report was amazing. So pleased to see it in the public domain. ❤

Fantastic piece of work. What next though?
We can't expect the political parties or the trade unions to champion the work.

Correcting a typo.

We keep on keeping on. The map was a big boost for awareness- over 3,000 people clicked on it the first month it was up and hundreds sent letters to MPs / Trusts. Hopefully having an overview that evidences the extent of the capture in the NHS available on a shareable link will help get the word out further.

We’re getting some good feedback that the audit is getting traction. I was in contact with a journalist this week who had been sent audit information from three different groups (including us). So that’s encouraging

If anyone has any fresh angles or ideas please share. There’s so much to this and fresh eyes may spot things we’ve missed

I think it's amazing, and you wims have done wonderful work. It strikes me, not for the first time, that isn't this exactly the kind of "citizens holding power to account", Tony Benn-style, that the Labour Party was supposed to support? Maybe especially touchy-feely types like Burnham? Funny they don't seem to see it that way (I know a handful do).

I think the one thing which shocked me most was that even if children were not Gillick competent, their wishes as regards to gender had to be respected. This is the greatest stupidity ever. Who will pick up the pieces when it all goes wrong? Chances are it would have to be the parents.

I’ve been trying to sell this story into media with no joy so far even with puberty blocker trial restarting and conversion therapy ban. Even tho Great Ormond Street has this policy and is both a household name and a gender hub under the new Cass holistic system 😔