NHS patients to be interrogated about sexuality

[cronus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41625402

NHS patients to be asked about sexuality

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."

(continued, so many ethnic Doctors with too many on their books....coming from homophobic cultures. Is it wise to give a straight answer?)

[Scot Dutchy]

Sexual orientation is of no one's concern.

[Rum]

Crumple is doing his usual. If you read the article it isn't about 'interrogation'.

[Scot Dutchy]

They should not even be asking.

[Rum]

Read the article maybe?

[Brian Peacock]

They should not even be asking.

It's relevant, in context, like your drinking habits or diet are relevant, in context.

[Scot Dutchy]

It is never asked here as it is illegal. Our privacy laws are very strict. In which context is it required?

[Rum]

Well the article is there to be read. In essence it says it is to monitor non-discriminatory practice.

RTFA!

[cronus]

Well the article is there to be read. In essence it says it is to monitor non-discriminatory practice.

RTFA!

WALT

[NineBerry]

I don't think this is a good idea at all.

[PsychoSerenity]

While I understand the intention behind diversity monitoring in attempting to reduce discrimination and ensure appropriate treatment for minority groups, it often seems like a very blunt instrument to use and more of bureaucratic box-ticking exercise than anything that would be genuinely helpful. It oversimplifies by reducing people to the categories they've been put in, rather than treating individuals on a case-by-case basis (which can already be done anyway). That certain problems can tend to effect certain groups to a greater degree shouldn't mean you treat that entire group for that problem.

For reducing discrimination, while having extra data may after-the-fact help identify particular sources of discrimination in some cases, the whole system of data collection is equally open to abuse. It's hard to say for certain that the benefits outweigh the risks. Where I work the company was required to carry out diversity monitoring even though with so few employees certain individuals would be personally identifiable on supposedly anonymous forms.

It seems this data for NHS purposes will necessarily be connected to medical records if all nurses and doctors are meant to be asking for it - unless the medical record just says whether an answer has been provided or not? The articles I've read aren't clear. But either way you're then potentially outsourcing the data to the private company that has promised to hold it for the lowest price.

[Brian Peacock]

It's relevant, in context, like your intravenous drug use or your religious affiliation is relevant, in context.

[PsychoSerenity]

It's relevant, in context, like your intravenous drug use or your religious affiliation is relevant, in context.

Medical staff can already ask questions about sexuality in any context where it might be relevant. What they don't do is keep a record of that on a database for diversity and discrimination monitoring by non-medical staff. Perhaps it would be useful thing to do, but my gut reaction is that it's probably not. From what I've seen this sort of this is usually used so organisations can say they've got the required paperwork to prove there's no discrimination - whether there actually is or not.

[Brian Peacock]

Yeah, I entirely accept your point PS, but (ha!) in the context of discrimination one has to start somewhere eh? How else is an organisation going to answer the questions, "Do we discriminate against gay men, or lesbian Muslims, or ginger intravenous drug users?" (though discriminating against gingers is kind of a given I guess)?

[NineBerry]

I would actually expect that everyone knowing who is gay will increase discrimination.