Single-sex hospital wards planned

The single-sex wards would improve patient dignity, the health minister says

Single-sex wards will be included in all new Welsh hospitals, the Health Minister Edwina Hart is to announce.

She will also order all hospitals with mixed sex wards to ensure there are separate areas for male and female patients and separate bathrooms.

It comes after recommendations were made by a working group of nursing staff and health bodies.

Ms Hart believes the change will improve the "dignity in care" for people during their stay in hospital.

In her announcement she will say: "Patients expect and deserve the utmost dignity in the care they receive and we must do more to ensure that the highest standards of care are provided.

"This new guidance will ensure that we raise that quality higher. There is no group better placed to make recommendations on this issue than nurses and their representative organisations in Wales."

Visiting times

The report from the working group also includes recommendations on the introduction of an all-Wales uniform for nursing staff, the improvement of hospital cleanliness and protection of patients' visiting times and mealtimes.

Richard Jones, acting director of the Royal College of Nursing in Wales, which took part in the working group, said: "Dignity is not just a top priority for nurses and politicians - we know this is something that patients also feel passionately about too.

"There can be no greater legacy set by the NHS in this its 60th anniversary year than one which maintains that patient-centred care is at the heart of all that we do."

Guidance currently states that health trusts should have local policies and protocols in place, but the new rules will mean uniformity on the issue of single sex wards across Wales.

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