Medics will have a duty to ensure sick Britons return to work under new NHS proposals, the government has revealed.
Under proposed changes to the NHS constitution – which outlines patient and staff rights and overall objectives – the health service will also be tasked with cracking down on terms such as ‘breastfeeding’ and ensuring ‘biological sex is respected’.
The changes could also see trans women, who are biologically male, banned from female-only hospital wards in England.
The document was last updated in 2015 will now be subject to an eight-week consultation period.
Here, MailOnline tells you everything you need to know about the proposals.
“Martha’s Rule” describes the need to provide families with a second opinion upon request when a patient’s condition worsens. It follows a campaign by the parents of 13-year-old Martha Mills, after whom the rule is named. Martha died in August 2021 while under the care of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in South London after developing sepsis
Martha’s parents, Guardian editor Merope Mills (pictured), and her husband Paul Laity, raised concerns about Martha’s health on a number of occasions, but these were brushed aside.
Martha’s rule
It sets out the need to provide families with a second opinion, if requested, when a patient’s condition worsens.
The rollout of the escalation process, also known as Martha’s Rule, began earlier this month.
Including it in the Constitution would ‘enshrine’ this right, the government said.
It follows a campaign by the parents of 13-year-old Martha Mills, after whom the rule is named.
Martha died in August 2021 while under the care of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in South London after developing sepsis.
Merope Mills and Paul Laity raised concerns about their daughter’s health with NHS staff on a number of occasions, but these were brushed aside.
A coroner ruled she would likely have survived if doctors had noticed the warning signs of her rapidly deteriorating condition and transferred her to intensive care sooner.
Supporting people to ‘stay in work and get back to work’
The constitution could also be amended to emphasize the role of the NHS in supporting people back to work.
Under the value of ‘improving lives’ in the NHS Constitution, the government has proposed adding language that reflects the ‘good impact that work can have’.
If adopted, the new version would read: ‘We support people to stay and return to work, reflecting the good impact work can have on a person’s health and wellbeing.’
It comes as Rishi Sunak outlined plans this week to reduce the 3.5 million disability benefits bill.
The changes would also see recipients of Personal Independence Payments (PIP), the main disability benefit, receive vouchers instead of regular cash payments, curbing the ‘sick note culture’.
EEarlier this month, the Prime Minister also promised to strip GPs of the power to dismiss Britons from work.
The change would see the letters – known in the NHS as ‘fit notes’ – instead become the responsibility of teams of ‘specialist work and health professionals’, he said.
The latest figures show that 2.8 million Britons are ‘economically inactive’ due to poor health. About half suffer from depression, anxiety and bad nerves.
Official forecasts also show that spending on poor health care through the PIP program will reach £33 billion by 2029 – up from just under £19 billion last year.
A source close to Health and Social Care Secretary Victoria Atkins said today: ‘As the Secretary of State has said, we cannot have a strong economy without a strong NHS – and we cannot have a strong NHS without a strong economy.
“We have a plan to make our health care system faster, simpler and fairer.
‘We know how important work is to people’s health and wellbeing, and the government is taking action to prevent people from being written off as ‘unfit for work’ by default.
‘It is therefore right that supporting people to stay in or return to work, and the impact this can have on someone’s health and wellbeing, should be enshrined in the NHS Constitution.’
Your browser does not support iframes.
Your browser does not support iframes.
Trans women are banned from women’s departments
Under the proposals, transgender people – whose gender identity differs from their biological sex – could instead be given single rooms where appropriate.
Patients will also have the right to request that a person of the same biological sex provide intimate care.
The proposals follow a pledge last year by then Health Secretary Steve Barclay to prevent people who had changed their gender identity from being treated in male-only or female-only wards.
The right to same-sex housing, which has existed for years, can and has been violated when there is a clinically urgent need to admit and treat patients, and does not extend to areas such as intensive care or emergency departments .
The guidelines also mean that trans men, who are biologically female, should not be housed in single-sex male units.
In response to the planned historic changes, the Minister of Health today stressed that it is crucial that ‘biological sex is respected’.
Victoria Atkins said: ‘We want to make it abundantly clear that if a patient wants same-sex care, they should have access to it wherever reasonably possible.
‘By including this in the NHS Constitution, we are highlighting the importance of balancing the rights and needs of all patients, to create a healthcare system that is faster, simpler and fairer for everyone.’
Here are some examples of the woke language changes that have swept NHS communications. Some of these examples are from national NHS communications, while others are used by individual hospitals
The term breastfeeding is used throughout the page, with the term “breast” omitted. Breast milk has also been replaced by ‘milk from the breast’
Crackdown on trans terminology
Ministers have also proposed that the NHS will crack down on trans terminology in hospitals, with terms such as ‘breastfeeding’ banned.
Referring to ‘people with ovaries’ instead of ‘women’ would be banned under government proposals to ensure hospitals use ‘sex-specific’ language.
Discussing the changes today, Ms Atkins said the language the NHS uses should be ‘clear and logical to people’, and not ‘weed out women’.
She told Times Radio: ‘I would like to see it be ‘business as usual’ so that people understand that when a woman comes into a maternity ward we ask her what she wants to be called and whether she wants to be called a mother or a mother. mother or wife, we respect all that, we try not to use artificial language.’
The NHS has been repeatedly criticized in recent years for removing female-specific terms such as ‘women’ from official health advice.
MailOnline revealed this included removing the word ‘women’ from diseases that only affect women, such as ovarian cancer and even menopause.
Health experts have warned that such de-sexualisation of language in the NHS is dangerous as it could overcomplicate vital health communications for women.
Last year, a report from the think tank Policy Exchange also said that NHS trusts were putting women’s rights at risk by providing intimate care to people of the same sex, not on the basis of their biological sex, but on their self-declared gender identity.
Take more responsibility when canceling appointments
The government has also proposed ‘strengthening’ patients’ responsibility to cancel or reschedule NHS appointments.
They should make sure they communicate this clearly if they cannot attend, they said.
Likewise, it is crucial that the NHS communicates information about appointments ‘in a clear and timely manner’, she added.
This includes alternative formats where deemed appropriate and reasonable.