Health Secretary Victoria Atkins will this week announce changes to the NHS constitution, ensuring clarity in healthcare by banning phrases like “chestfeeding” and “people who have ovaries”, and prioritising use of biologically precise, sex-based language that meets the medical needs of women (LBC, Mail, Telegraph).
The NHS constitution sets out patients’ rights, and the revised iteration will emphasise the importance of using “sex-specific” language in the health service after references to women were expunged from advice on the menopause and diseases such as cervical and ovarian cancer.
All NHS bodies, as well as private and third-sector providers that supply NHS services, are required by law to take it into account when making decisions. The changes proposed this week will be subject to an eight-week consultation.
There has been fierce debate around attempts to reduce the use of the word “woman” in discussions on subjects including pregnancy and childbirth, and any move to do so has provoked ire from gender critical campaigners seeking to defend women’s hard-won sex-based rights.
Earlier this month, a group of more than 130 MPs, peers, doctors, psychiatrists and academics wrote to the Prime Minister to demand a public inquiry into transgender ideology in schools and the NHS.
Last year, some 1,200 doctors, nurses and health practitioners wrote to NHS bosses and all four chief nursing officers demanding the organisation reinstate the word ‘woman’ in cancer and pregnancy webpages.
At least 19 women’s health pages on the NHS website fail to mention women either at all or
The Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender, a group of NHS staff, organised the letter after noticing that at least 19 women’s health pages on the NHS website had shifted to gender-neutral language, and weren’t mentioning ‘women’, either at all or in addition to non-gendered language, including in the guidance on ovarian and uterus cancer, menopause, childbirth and heavy periods.
In their letter, the clinicians provided examples of the type of linguistic erasure in question.
Official NHS guidance for ovarian cancer, for instance, previously began by saying it “is one of the most common types of cancer in women”. Now, this sentence has vanished along with any mention of women.
The NHS overview page on miscarriages previously said: “For most women, a miscarriage is a one-off event, and they go on to have a successful pregnancy in future.” Following the website’s update, the page simply refers to most “people”, not most “women”.
Elsewhere, information about womb cancer used to begin with reference to “the female reproductive system” before going on to note that this type of cancer is “more common in women who have been through the menopause”. Again, the reformulated version contains no reference to females or women.
According to the clinicians’ letter, “NHS messaging” of this kind “shows a lack of concern for women”. The letter continues: “Removal of sex-based language is discriminatory and could leave the NHS open to legal challenge… We call for the reinstatement of sex-based, respectful communication that meets the healthcare needs of women. Specifically, the NHS must use women’s words for women’s bodies and women’s health problems.”
Maya Forstater, chief executive of the campaign group Sex Matters, said the changes represent a “major step” towards reversing NHS England’s “capitulation to the demands of gender extremists, which has damaged policies and practices, created widespread confusion and harmed patient care”.
She added: “Clear language, single-sex wards and access to intimate care provided by a health professional of the same sex are crucial to the wellbeing and safety of female patients. They should never have been compromised.”
