After multiple scandals, repeated warnings from experts and a revolving door of health secretaries, the NHS will finally be able to put an end to the ‘eradication’ of the term women and the use of ‘artificial language’.
Health Secretary Victoria Atkins today announced proposed changes to the NHS Constitution, a document that sets out what the health service wants to achieve in terms of recognizing the importance of biological sex.
Discussing the changes, Ms Atkins said the language the NHS uses should be ‘clear and logical to people’, and not ‘weed out women’.
She told Times Radio: ‘There will be listeners who are concerned about seeing articles in the newspaper about ‘breastfeeding’ and that sort of language.’
The change in attitude is also accompanied by proposals to ensure that trans patients can only use same-sex wards and that patients have the right to seek intimate care from a doctor of their own gender.
Here, MailOnline explains how we got here amid years of scandals and multiple promises.
Health Minister Victoria Atkins (pictured) today announced proposed changes to the NHS Constitution, a document that sets out what the health service wants to achieve in terms of recognizing the importance of biological sex. Discussing the changes, she said the language the NHS uses should be ‘clear and logical to people’, and not ‘weed out women’
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
Although examples had previously emerged of individual NHS trusts removing or avoiding terms such as women from local advice, in 2022 it became a national issue.
MailOnline revealed that NHS Digital had quietly removed all mentions of women from its ovarian, uterine and cervical cancer landing pages.
The previous version of the NHS ovarian cancer page included the line: ‘Ovarian cancer, or ovarian cancer, is one of the most common cancers in women.’
This has been replaced by ‘Anyone with ovaries can get ovarian cancer, but it mainly affects people over 50.’
Just a few weeks later, this website revealed that ‘women’ and ‘woman’ had also been left out of official advice on menopause, which is unique to biological women.
The web page previously described the condition as “when a woman stops having periods and can no longer become pregnant naturally.”
But the new gender-neutral description read: “Menopause is when your periods stop due to lower hormone levels.”
A total of six mentions of ‘women’ and ‘woman’ have been removed from the page.
To justify the change, NHS Digital said at the time that they wanted language to be ‘inclusive and respectful’.
The move was condemned by then Health Secretary Sajid Javid, who said ‘common sense and the right language’ must be used to ‘give people the best possible care’.
In 2022, Sajid Javid pledged to reverse gender-neutral language in NHS advice after MailOnline revealed the term ‘women’ had been quietly erased from menopause advice
Dr Cass’s report (pictured) concluded that trans children were on the path to irreversible change, despite ‘remarkably weak evidence’ supporting medical treatment
Health experts criticized the degenerative change in language warning that essential health advice for women was becoming too complicated.
Another example, which was reversed after backlash, was the NHS miscarriage page.
The change saw NHS officials replace ‘women who know they are pregnant’ with ‘people who know they are pregnant’.
Another line on the page was also criticized for saying miscarriage “only affects about one in a hundred people” rather than women.
However, it was not the end of the scandals.
The same year, the NHS was criticized for ‘ideological’ new advice for trans parents which did not mention the word ‘breast’.
A page titled “breastfeeding if you’re trans or non-binary” makes no mention of breasts and calls breast reductions “top surgery.”
The guidelines also encouraged people to continue taking hormone transition drugs if they are breastfeeding, despite the NHS admitting that ‘it is unclear what effect this could have on your baby’.
Although the advice was written a year before publication, it was only published online after almost 12 months of internal NHS wrangling.
Even the final version raised concerns among nurses and maternity experts, who said it fails to warn people about the health risks of such practices for both parents and babies.
In October 2023, then Health Secretary Steve Barclay announced his intention to stem the tide of ‘ideologically’ inclusive language in the NHS.
He criticized the “unacceptable” use of gender-neutral language on advice pages on conditions that only affect women, such as cervical cancer.
Gender-specific language has now been “fully reinstated” in offending health departments as a result of his intervention, he said.
Mr Barclay also revealed he was ‘going further’ as he unveiled proposals to ban trans women – biological males who identify as the opposite sex – from using female-only hospital wards.
He argued that “the voices of essential women are heard” and that “the privacy, dignity and safety of all patients are protected.”
Against the backdrop of these language scandals, another NHS controversy was tackled: the standards and quality of care challenging children.
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Only earlier this year did the Cass review’s damning findings expose the ‘shaky foundations’ of NHS transgender treatment.
Led by renowned pediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, the study found that vulnerable children questioning their gender have been ‘abandoned’ by clinicians who have used ‘remarkably weak evidence’ to dole out life-changing treatments such as puberty blockers.
Although the mammoth 400-page report did not focus on language use in the NHS, it brought much-needed clarity and focus to a controversial, exceptionally toxic and dark area of modern medicine.
It also highlighted how sweeping changes in healthcare practices were made in the name of gender inclusivity and were not supported by evidence.
In the wake of the report, the NHS announced it would launch a similarly wide-ranging inquiry into trans healthcare services for adults.
This will serve as a “Cass, Part Two,” it said, covering the entire field.
The changes proposed to the NHS Constitution have not yet been finalized and will be subject to an eight-week consultation, concluding on June 25.
However, they are already widely welcomed by women’s rights groups and gender-critical feminists.
Maya Forstater, chief executive of Sex Matters, a human rights charity that campaigns for clarity on sex in law, policy and language, said: ‘Victoria Atkins explicitly referring to biological sex is of great importance.
‘It will benefit anyone who needs same-sex intimate care in the NHS in England, or who may do so in the future.
“We can expect an outraged response from trans rights activists, but this is simply a return to common sense and a belated recognition that women’s well-being and safety matter.”