THIS WEEK IN 1996: Proposals to end mixed-sex wards

Health chiefs were considering two options and aimed to make a decision after consulting patients.

Penny Humphris, the chief executive of Portsmouth Health Authority, said she was totally committed to improvements.

This could have meant a mixture of single and mixed-sex wards or partitioning of wards, but patients could have had to share bathroom facilities.

Ms Humphris said: ‘We have to be realistic and we are not going to get the ultimate solution until we move out of those wards altogether.

‘But if we can at least have separate sleeping areas available for men and women then that is a start.’