Member's statement: Transgender Hospital Patients: NHS England Guidance
Member's statement by Mrs Diane Dodds on .
- MLA
- Mrs Diane Dodds
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 19 October 2026
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Transgender Hospital Patients: NHS England Guidance
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5795342
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Last week, NHS England updated its guidance to say that trans patients should be cared for on single-sex hospital wards or in bays that align with their biological sex rather than their gender. That means that the updated NHS England guidance brings care arrangements into line with the Supreme Court ruling of April 2025 on the definition of "sex". Although it should not have taken a Supreme Court ruling to decide something that most of us view as being common sense, the court established that single-sex spaces must be protected. What does that mean for Northern Ireland? The Minister of Health should now move to clarify the position in Northern Ireland. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom has declared that biological sex should be the basis on which organisations offer those services. We have heard very little from the Health Minister on that important issue. Women in hospital, who are often at their most vulnerable, need to be reassured that their rights will not be caught up in the uncertainty that has been created by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, which, rather than implement the Supreme Court ruling, has asked the High Court for a declaration on how to proceed before issuing guidance. Does the Health Minister understand that that puts women in Northern Ireland at a distinct disadvantage? Surely the Minister wants women in Northern Ireland to be offered the same protections as women in other parts of the United Kingdom.
The straightforward principle is that women's rights matter, that the law should be upheld and that common sense should prevail. Thank you for your forbearance, Mr Deputy Speaker.
277 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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