NHS patients to be asked about sexuality

Oct 15, 2017 by

from BBC News:

Health professionals in England are to be told to ask patients aged 16 or over about their sexual orientation, under new NHS guidelines.

NHS England said no-one would be forced to answer the question but recording the data would ensure that “no patient is discriminated against”.

The guidance applies to doctors and nurses, as well as local councils responsible for adult social care.

A spokeswoman said: “It will have no impact on the care [people] receive.”

She added: “All health bodies and local authorities with responsibility for adult social care are required under the Equality Act to ensure that no patient is discriminated against.”

She said the information would help NHS bodies comply with equality legislation by “consistently collecting, only where relevant, personal details of patients such as race, sex and sexual orientation.”

‘Intrusive and offensive’

NHS England recommends health professionals – such as GPs and nurses – ask about a person’s sexual orientation at “every face to face contact with the patient, where no record of this data already exists”.

But the Family Doctor Association said it was “potentially intrusive and offensive” for GPs to monitor people’s sexuality.

Chairman Dr Peter Swinyard told the BBC that for older patients in particular, sexuality “doesn’t affect health outcomes or care”.

He said that GPs tend to know patients’ sexuality, or would ask, if it was relevant to their medical condition.

For example, patients at a sexual health clinic are likely to be asked, but not those attending a wart clinic.

Read here

Read also, from Mailonline:

Doctors are ordered to ask patients if they are gay: NHS bows to pressure from equal rights lobby to insist that GPs have to record every patient’s sexuality, Mailonline

 

Related Posts

Tags

Share This