Darlington nurses accuse Government of dragging feet on single-sex spaces

The Government is facing accusations by the Darlington nurses of “dragging their feet” on single-sex spaces guidance while the NHS has been warned it must ensure safe spaces for women.

A group of healthcare workers who complained about sharing single-sex changing rooms with a trans colleague have hailed a ruling in their favour at a tribunal as “a victory for common sense and for every woman who simply wants to feel safe at work”.

The employment tribunal ruling, published on Friday, found they had suffered harassment which violated their dignity and created “a hostile, intimidating, humiliating and degrading environment for them”.

Eight members of the Day Surgery Unit at Darlington Memorial Hospital brought a claim against County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust after Rose Henderson, who was born male but identifies as a woman, was allowed to use the women’s changing facilities.

NHS trusts currently decide locally on changing room guidance for staff, but the nurses have urged other trusts to follow suit in ensuring single-sex spaces at facilities across the country.

While the tribunal ruling is not binding on other trusts, it is expected to ramp up the pressure on both the NHS to have a clear and consistent policy and on the Government to implement Britain-wide employer guidance which they have been considering since September.

Nurse Bethany Hutchison, said the NHS “cannot ignore this (issue) any longer”, adding: “Allowing men to access female-only spaces simply because they claim to be women undermines truth and erodes common sense.”

Echoing this, her colleague Lisa Lockey said the group hopes “the rest of the NHS follows suit with dealing with the situation, with making safe spaces for women”.

Ms Hutchison, who led the claim, also described the wait for the Government to publish and implement the updated code of practice, handed to ministers more than four months ago by regulator the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), as “quite frustrating”.

She told reporters the Government was “clearly dragging their feet and they need to pick up the pace”.

She added: “This is not a difficult thing to work out. It’s pretty simple, and I think this ruling has shown that.”

Women and Equalities minister Bridget Phillipson recently acknowledged people want “clarity” on the subject but said there is a balance to be sought between ensuring safe spaces for women and trans people’s access to the services they need.

The code, which will be used by businesses and other organisations to inform their provision of single and separate-sex services such as toilets and changing rooms, has been updated by the regulator in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling in April that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act “refer to a biological woman and biological sex”.

But the draft code – described by the EHRC as “legally sound”, indicating it does not think it needs substantial changes – requires ministerial approval and would only come into force 40 days after the Government had laid it in Parliament.

Ms Hutchison said the tribunal ruling, which she branded a “massive vindication” for the nurses involved, aligns with the Supreme Court judgment.

She said she and her colleagues had been left feeling they had “black marks put above our names” but that “this ruling has shown that we were in the right the whole time”.

In his ruling, employment Judge Seamus Sweeney said: “The trust subjected the claimants to harassment related to sex and gender reassignment by permitting the claimants’ biological male, trans woman colleague to use the female changing room and requiring the claimants to share that changing room without providing suitable alternative facilities.”

The ruling said the trust also subjected the nurses to harassment by not taking their concerns seriously, adding: “This included referring to the need for the claimants to be educated on trans rights and to broaden their mindsets, the later provision of inadequate and unsuitable changing facilities for those who objected to sharing the female changing room with that colleague.”

Judge Sweeney said: “The above conduct had the effect of violating the dignity of the claimants and creating a hostile, intimidating, humiliating and degrading environment for them.”

Ms Hutchison said the ruling “sends a clear message: the NHS cannot ignore women’s rights in the name of ideology” and that “forcing us to undress in front of a man was not only degrading but dangerous”.

The nurses claimed that Rose stared at colleagues in the female changing rooms, repeatedly asked one of them why she was not getting changed and walked round the room in boxer shorts.

In response, Rose told the panel “I am not the individual (the claimants) have painted me to be”, and described how “upsetting” it had been to see “hordes of people” posting insults online after the case came to public attention.

The nurses brought a claim for harassment, victimisation and indirect sex discrimination but the tribunal found that Rose had not personally harassed or victimised the claimants.

Ms Lockey said she was not “massively concerned” that the tribunal had rejected that claim, saying: “We never wanted to hurt Rose.”

She said it was “the trust who put him in that situation”.

The tribunal concluded that, “by permitting a biological male, trans woman to use the female changing room” the trust was in breach of workplace regulations “and had infringed the claimants’ right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights”.

The judgment said the trust’s policy in relation to the changing rooms “put women at a particular disadvantage when compared to men, in that women are more likely than men to experience feelings or apprehensions of, fear, distress and/or humiliation by, in effect, being required to change their clothes in front of a member of the opposite sex”.

“The claimants were all put to that disadvantage,” it said.

Although eight women brought the claim, the judgment handed down on Friday only relates to seven of the nurses. The claim made by one of the women is currently stayed, the judgment said.

The nurses’ claim was supported by the Christian Legal Centre, whose chief executive Andrea Williams said the ruling “exposes the extent to which the NHS hierarchy has been captured by extreme gender ideology and its willingness to sacrifice women’s safety and dignity in order to uphold it”.

She added: “The NHS and the Government should now give up their sabotage of clear judicial decisions and abide by the law which acknowledges that men are men and women are women.”

A spokesperson for County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust said: “We are taking time to review the judgment carefully and will comment further once we have had the opportunity to consider it in full.”

NHS England and the EHRC have been contacted for comment.

The judgment follows nurse Sandie Peggie’s partial victory last month in her claim against her employer, NHS Fife, after she complained about being forced to share changing facilities with transgender doctor Beth Upton at Kirkcaldy’s Victoria Hospital in December 2023.

Ms Peggie said she was “overjoyed” at the Darlington tribunal ruling and paid tribute to “the courage they have shown in securing this important legal victory”.

She added that it “has only strengthened my determination to continue with an appeal to overturn the judgment in my own case”.

Ms Peggie previously confirmed she is appealing against the ruling in her case, which upheld her claim of harassment but dismissed allegations she had made of discrimination, indirect discrimination and victimisation.