The number of NHS patients in mixed-sex wards has risen sharply in a month, in a sign that the government is failing to curb a practice it promised to abolish.
Official stats from the Department of Health show there were 1,244 so called "breaches" of the rules in October, up from 1,079 in September 2011.
The same figures show that 68% of NHS Acute Trusts which submitted data reported no instances of patients sleeping in mixed sex wards - meaning the practice took place in nearly a third of hospitals in October. It suggests that the number of hospitals being forced to accommodate people in mixed sex wards has risen since the start of the year, when around half of acute trusts said they'd been forced to do this.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley promised at the start of the year to stamp out the practice of male and female patients sleeping in the same wards. The previous Labour government had also promised to get rid of mixed sex accommodation but the incoming coalition government had said it was worse than they'd thought.
Responding to Thursday's disappointing figures, Katherine Murphy, Chief Executive of the Patients Association, said:
"The Department of Health’s figures show a marked increase in the number of people staying in mixed sex accommodation. It is clear that cuts are beginning to bite and hospitals are struggling to ensure that the care they provide is up to an acceptable standard.
"It is not enough to spout rhetoric about mixed sex accommodation being unacceptable, the Department of Health needs to provide practical support to the Trusts who continue to breach mixed sex accommodation guidelines to stamp out this problem once and for all.
"Instead they impose fines on Trusts already facing squeezed budgets, taking tens of thousands of pounds away from Trusts that could have been spent on fixing the problem."
The data has been released on the same day as Lansley's new pledge to stamp out "hidden waiting lists". Labour have claimed today that the number of people having to wait more than 18 weeks for treatment has risen by 48% since the election in May 2010