NHS Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager meeting

Yesterday I had an appointment with the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager at our local NHS trust. This was the trust where Lucy encountered what seemed to be a self appointed ‘sex change’ expert (head paramedic and his 'expert' terminology) who gave Lucy no choice in the ward she would be admitted to and broke so many regulations under the Data Protection, Equality and the Gender Recognition Acts.

After Lucy’s experience, my first course of action was to contact PALS and request a copy of their transgender policy. I wanted to see what this document contained and then compare our experience to what had been documented. I was surprised to find that there was no policy in place at all however they referred me to the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager, Mr A, who suggested a meeting to discuss our experiences but also to be involved with the creation of a policy.

Lucy was supposed to be coming too but for her this issue is now in the past and she is more prepared to let things slide. My view is that if Lucy was ever ill again, this would be the hospital that she would end up in so I wanted to safeguard her but also anyone else from the community that may have need of this particular NHS trust services (there are two local hospitals under this Trust). Lucy certainly isn’t the only one from the community living in the surrounding area.

Mr A had been extremely friendly on the phone and via email but I still wasn’t sure what to expect. I didn’t know much about his experience or what he may be expecting from me so I had a quick look at his LinkedIn profile (very useful!) and could see that he has been involved with this sort of policy before. In order to prepare, I scoured the internet for various other NHS Trusts transgender policies which I printed off to take with me. There were four fairly recent ones and although the basic content was the same the best and most comprehensive was for South London and Maudsley NHS Trust. I went through them all and highlighted all the areas that were relevant to our experience. To be honest I was shocked when I realised how many regulations had been breached by the paramedic, I just hadn’t realised. I also prepared a list of useful organisations and websites and printed and highlighted the relevant part of my blog post as that explained the situation perfectly; all I added was the paramedics name.

I arrived for the meeting and Mr A greeted me at the door. Again he was very friendly and amicable and I think we both felt really at ease with each other which made conversation easy. 

I started by telling him a bit about us and went over the experience that we had been through and he took lots of notes. I reiterated that the actual medical care that Lucy had received, especially as it was near to Christmas and the NHS was getting slated in the press about waiting times, was not up for dispute and that we were very happy with the medical care she had received. All the staff from the receptionist through to the nursing staff and consultants had not batted an eye at our situation and although some may have struggled with pronouns they had tried and all been respectful and made us both feel as comfortable as we could be under the circumstances. All the issues that we had were created by this ‘expert’ and we struggled to see why he had even been required to speak to us as the conversation regarding wards and beds could have been had with any of the staff we had already encountered. He asked me if we knew had instructed him to come to speak to us but we didn’t know.

We also discussed about Lucy being placed on a male ward with no choice and the open conversations the paramedic had with the ward staff and the subsequent open nursing team meeting that was had discussing Lucy. I also told him that we had a real lack of male clothing at home but as she had been admitted to a male ward I had been out and bought suitable male clothes and accessories as she didn’t want to draw any attention to her situation as she was in an open male ward. He was appalled that we had felt the need to do this. He said we were accommodating them where they should have been them accommodating Lucy and that they had failed her terribly. There should have been a way to accommodate her in a female ward either in a private room or in a corner of a ward with curtains. He also understood that her bathroom needs would have been different to the other patients on the male ward and that she had to pick her time when she went into the shared facilities as she had to shave facially at least once day and there was all the other personal care too which meant she would have been using the facilities far longer than anyone else.

He said that he was very concerned and the first thing he would need to ensure is that the paramedic is not used for this purpose again as he was in breach of so many legal requirements. He thanked me for trying to resolve the issue in this way rather than making a straight forward complaint. I said that for us it was not about screaming and shouting and we were not even necessarily after an apology but we wanted to ensure that procedures and processes are changed so this does not continue or happen again to someone else. He will raise this with the complaints team so that the ‘incident’ can be logged and investigated properly but following on from this a formal transgender policy will need to be created, not just for transgender patients/users of the NHS services but a comprehensive all encompassing policy that also caters for transgendered staff. To do this he wanted to work with us and as part of this process would like us to come in and chat to staff about our experiences as he said that it is one thing having a policy and training people but sometimes listening to real life examples with how it made us feel can make it more real and bring the message home better.

We went through some of the NHS transgender policies I had printed and I had not only highlighted parts relevant to us but also parts of the policies which I felt were key to any new policy. He was suitably impressed and said that I had done much of the background work for him as this would have been the first thing he would have done. He had previously been in touch with GIRES in a previous role so has touch points with them. Obviously as well as a policy, he considers staff training and engagement as key. For this I got the opportunity to recommend a friend of ours who has her own transgender consultancy, SEE Change Happen, and he was very interested in using her and I was able to pass her details on.

This is no instant fix and the creation of any new policy and training will take time, let alone one that needs to encompass so many legal requirements. This will be work in progress for some time and I am excited to be part of this process as there is an opportunity to educate and make change for the better.