County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust is proud to confirm that mixed sex accommodation has been virtually eliminated in all of our hospitals.
Every patient has the right to receive high quality care that is safe, effective and respects their privacy and dignity. CountyDurham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust is committed to providing every patient with same sex accommodation to help safeguard their privacy and dignity when they are often at their most vulnerable.
We are proud to confirm that mixed sex accommodation has been virtually eliminated in our Trust. Patients who are admitted to any of our hospitals will only share the room where they sleep, with members of the same sex and same sex toilets and bathing facilities will be close to their bed area.
Wards within the Trust are grouped according to specialty. This allows patients with similar conditions to be nursed in one area with staff who are experienced in this type of care. This means that men and women will be on the same ward but will not share sleeping, bathing or toilet facilities.
Sharing with members of the opposite sex will only happen by exception based on clinical need such as intensive care areas or other emergency areas. In these instances, every effort will be made to rectify the situation as soon as possible and staff will take extra care to ensure that privacy and dignity is maintained.
What does this mean for patients?
Other than in the circumstances set out above, patients admitted to CountyDurham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust can expect to find the following:
What are our plans for the future?
We have had four breaches of the standard over the past year; two of these breaches were to meet the clinical needs of patients and two we feel could have been avoided. We aim to have no breaches for non-clinical reasons in this coming year.
The Trust has already done a lot of work to improve privacy and dignity for our patients and has an action plan in place to ensure this work stays high on the agenda for the organisation.
We have made physical changes to some wards to provide additional toilet and bathing facilities and improved privacy in one of our four bedded bays on the admission ward. We have visual displays across on wards to provide information to patients and visitors about how the ward areas are designed, same sex accommodation and our commitment to maintaining privacy and dignity at all times.
Signs on bathrooms and toilets have been replaced with pictorial signs that are interchangeable to reflect the gender of the patients within the nearby bay.
The Trust has also purchased equipment to enable real time surveys to be carried out on our wards to find out what our patients think of our services. This will include monthly surveys on privacy and dignity. The findings of these surveys will be reported to the Board.
Patient information leaflets and bedside information packs will include information on what patients can expect in different areas.
On any occasion when it has been necessary to care for patients in a mixed sex bay, the ward is required to report this to enable an evaluation of the circumstances at the time and identify improvements to prevent further occurrences.
We are also including privacy and dignity assessments in all estates programmes for patient care areas to ensure compliance.
We have rescheduled lists in some of our day case areas to make them single sex lists. Where this is not possible, we have purchased additional solid screens to provide additional privacy and ensure dignity is maintained
How will we measure success?
The results of patient surveys will be analysed and reported to the Board to ensure improvement is maintained. These results will also be made available to the public via our website.
We will also monitor any complaints or comments on privacy and dignity and make any necessary improvements. Themes from complaints are monitored and regular reports are presented to the Board.
What do I do if I think I am in mixed sex accommodation?
If you think you are in mixed accommodation then please speak to the nurse in charge of the ward or area you are in. This will be taken extremely seriously by staff and iimmediate action will be taken to explain the reasons behind this and assurance will be provided that you will be moved to a same sex area/bay as soon as possible.
We want to know about your experiences. Please contact Eileen Aylott, Matron at if you have any comments or concerns about single sex accommodation.