NHS issues new rule barring trans women from female wards after court decision

NHS England is set to publish guidance mandating that hospitals assign patients to single-sex spaces—wards, toilets and showers—based on the sex recorded at birth, ending a 2019 policy that required accommodation according to gender identity. The new rule, issued today, aligns with the Supreme Court’s April 2025 decision that the Equality Act’s terms “woman” and “sex” denote biological sex, and with subsequent Equality and Human Rights Commission advice.

NHS England will formally notify NHS trusts and integrated care boards, obliging chief executives to enforce the change, after several trusts had kept trans women on female wards pending national direction. The policy reversal responds to complaints from nurses in Darlington and elsewhere who said sharing changing rooms with transgender colleagues made them feel unsafe. Former health secretary Wes Streeting had pledged revised guidance by summer 2025, but it has taken 18 months to appear. Critics, including Christian Concern’s Andrea Williams, welcome the move but say further protection for staff over pronoun use is still needed.