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NHS Trusts in Devon, Oxford and Nottinghamshire have told staff a criminal history should be part of a risk assessment when deciding to put a person born male on a female-only ward.

But they do not say that it prevents transgender men from being admitted.

The news has sparked anger and concerns for the safety of women patients.

It comes as NHS Trusts across the country also issued guidance on allowing people who are transgender to choose which ward, lavatory and shower facilities they use.

The policies have been put in place even though a Department of Health order says hospitals have to provide single-sex wards.

Medical staff have warned that the guidance could leave the most vulnerable at risk.

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, the chair of Parliamentary campaign group Children and Women First, said that by “manipulating and distorting” equality laws, the NHS is denying women the right to “dignity and privacy” in their treatment.

She said: “The NHS is the best in the world. We can’t afford to have the NHS go off track like this. It will be the laughing stock of the world.”

The Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust said: “If the service user has a sex-offending history, risk should be managed in the same way as it would be with any other client, irrespective of gender.”

Devon Partnership NHS Trust guidance states: “Transgender people must be able to use the facilities of their preferred gender while admitted.”

Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust guidance says that when deciding on a treatment setting “previous history of sexual offending should be taken into account”.

An NHS spokesman said: “Hospitals must safeguard the safety, privacy and dignity of all patients, including following the legal requirements established by Parliament.”

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COMMENT BY MAYA FORSTATER

It is a basic matter of dignity that when you are unwell, undressed or unable to go home to your own bed, you should not be forced into sharing accommodation with people of the opposite sex.

Since 2009 NHS England has had a policy of “single-sex wards”. But from the outset there was a loophole.

An annex to the policy says that people can choose an opposite-sex ward based on “the way they dress, and the name and pronouns they currently use”.

Anyone who identifies as “non-binary” can chose a male or female ward. Having fully intact male genitalia is no bar to being in a space for women or girls.

The placing of convicted or suspected male sex offenders in women’s hospital wards was entirely predictable. The NHS England policy says that “curtains” can provide sufficient safeguard against humiliation or worse.

Relying on individual risk assessments is no safeguard at all when staff are made afraid to speak up or even to record what sex people are.

If you think this is wrong, tell your MP that sex matters, and that policies should protect women’s safety, privacy and dignity.

• Maya Forstater is the Founder of the Sex Matters Campaign

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