The survey, carried out by the Healthcare Commission watchdog, said the proportion of patients treated in 'mixed-sex' facilities ranged from between 60 per cent to five per cent. On average across the NHS, 22 per cent of patients are being treated this way.
Conservative peer Baroness Knight of Collingtree, a long-term campaigner against mixed-sex wards, said: 'This matter concerns me greatly. I have constantly raised it in the House of Lords and am always told it involves only a tiny number of patients.
'This latest information clearly indicates that the number of people placed on mixed sex wards must be increasing.
'I will keep raising the matter until the appalling embarrassment, inconvenience and sometimes danger to patients involved stops.'
The Daily Mail first started campaigning against the problem of mixed sex wards 12 years ago.
Two years later, in November 1996, Tony Blair – as opposition leader – said: 'Is it really beyond the collective wits of the Government and health administrators to deal with this problem?
'It's not just a question of money. It's a question of political will.'
Despite this, more than 100 mixed sex wards still exist and hospitals are simply taking short-cuts on privacy in order to meet targets set by Labour.
For example, under Government rules, hospitals can claim they are meeting their targets on single-sex accommodation by simply putting up screens or curtains between beds occupied by men and women.
This is particularly common in psychiatric wards, where the consequences can be disastrous for female patients.
In July this year a leaked study revealed as many as 100 vulnerable women were raped, sexually assaulted and sexually harassed at NHS mental health units in just two years.
'Allowing trusts to simply put curtains up between patients makes no difference to them whatsoever,' Mrs Murphy added.
'It makes a mockery of the Government's targets and is simply a token gesture that is failing to get to the root of the problem.'
In 1997, the Government set its first target for closing such wards by 1999. But in January 2000 this was revised to 2002.
It was then moved again, to April 2004 – but even this target has now been missed.
Tory health minister Stephen O'Brien said: 'What further proof do we need of the value of a promise from this Labour Government than their record on mixed sex wards.
'Four years ago they said they would get rid of mixed sex wards, but four years on the increasing evidence shows the situation is getting worse not better.
'Financial deficits, caused by the Government's mismanagement of the NHS, is now leading to less trusts taking the decision to close mixed sex wards.'
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health denied the number of patients being treated on mixed wards was on the rise.
She said all but one per cent of hospital trusts currently had segregated sleeping arrangements for men and women, while only three per cent still required both sexes to wash together in shared facilities. |
