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In an era of patient-centred care and growing concern over misconduct in medical settings, why do women still lack the right to choose women consultants for examination and treatment? Charles Davey investigates
Equality legislation has resulted in significant improvements in the workplace for women, both in terms of pay and career paths albeit with some way still to go. It is startling, however, just how primitive our society remains in respect of the treatment of women in other areas of their lives. This article addresses one of these areas – medical care, specifically the right for women to elect examinations and care by women medical practitioners.
Hundreds of women who sought to serve in our armed forces have come forward alleging that they were sexually abused in medical examinations during recruitment. Operation Pianora, led by Wiltshire Police, is currently investigating over 500 reports of incidents from the 1970s to 2016 at locations across the UK. In When We Are at Our Most Vulnerable, a 2023 Women’s Rights Network report, Prof Jo Phoenix exposed the extraordinary number of rapes (around 1,500) and sexual assaults (around 4,000) in hospitals, almost invariably of women and girls, from January 2019 to October 2022 which includes the COVID period when access was strictly controlled.
In Breaking the Silence: Addressing Misconduct in Healthcare, the Working Party on Sexual Misconduct in Surgery (WPSMS) described a pattern of inappropriate behaviour and sexual assaults, including rape, by senior surgeons against junior female medics often in the operating theatre. The WPSMS report, published in 2023, acknowledged that doctors who perpetrate such acts on colleagues are likely to be demonstrating the same behaviour towards patients.
There are many women who for reasons of personal dignity or specific religious or cultural traditions may wish any intimate examination to be carried out by a woman. For female patients who have experienced abuse – which is most often perpetrated by men – as a child or adult, examination by a male doctor could be retraumatising.
Is it not now time to enshrine in the NHS constitution, and in the professional standards of all the medical professions, a right for all female patients to have examinations and care provided by a person of the same sex?
Procedures and conversations that are routine for healthcare professionals can be intensely personal and invasive for patients, a distinction that is too often overlooked in medical circles. It is also worth noting that in the context of a strip search by the police (no internal examination) a suspect cannot even consent to a search by a member of the opposite sex. Also, some patients, regardless of gender, delay seeking medical treatment in part because of the embarrassment of an intimate examination.
An investigation by The Times in 2019 revealed that over a million women in England did not have regular access to a female GP. According to FOI requests made by this author, neither the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) nor NHS England have ever carried out any research into the preferences of female patients as to the gender of doctors and nurses who they see in Obstetrics and Gynaecology (O&G).
In contrast, there is ample international research from Canada, Australia, the United States, Israel and Brazil that a substantial proportion of women have a strong preference for care by a female doctor, especially intimate care in O&G and urology, but also for breast examination and general surgery. In one analysis (Sao Paulo Medical Journal 2022, 140(1)) researchers separated out respondents by age. The highest preference for a same-gender physician was in the youngest group of women – under 44.
The previous government’s 10-year Women’s Health Strategy for England published in 2022 was completely silent on this issue. The King’s Fund report, Women’s experience of gynaecological and urogynaecological services in primary and secondary care, commissioned by DHSC and published in 2019, is similarly silent. In April 2026, the government published a Renewed Women’s Health Strategy for England. Promising to give women voice, agency and choice – while acknowledging that the ‘NHS has a problem with basic, everyday sexism and an appalling culture of medical misogyny’ – it is also silent on any right to elect same-sex medical care.
The position of the General Medical Council (GMC) is that: ‘There is no legal right for patients to be treated by a doctor of the same birth sex.’
The British Medical Association (BMA) Core Ethics Guidance states: ‘[T]here is no statuory requirement for the NHS to provide a healthcare professional of the same gender in any healthcare setting.’
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the right to respect for private and family life. ‘Private life’ has been interpreted broadly by the courts and, as the Equality and Human Rights Commission has asserted, includes the right to control who sees and touches your body. There is no exemption for health care and medical examinations.
The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 provide that:
‘the care and treatment of service users must… (c) reflect their preferences’ reg 9 (1)(c).
Under reg10 (2) a registered service provider is required to ensure the privacy of the service user and have regard to any relevant protected characteristics. Sex is a protected characteristic.
The statutory guidance on the Regulations published by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) sets out the fundamental standards below which care must never fall. The CQC specifically states for reg 9(3) that information given to a service user must include: ‘All possible relevant or appropriate care and treatment options.’ That must surely include, for a woman, being informed about the option of receiving an intimate examination or care from a woman practitioner and that care or examination can be delayed until a practitioner of the same gender becomes available.
CQC guidance stipulates that under reg 10(1) providers must make sure that people have privacy when they need and want it and that: ‘Staff must respect people’s personal preferences, lifestyle and care choices.’ The CQC goes on to say:
‘ When providing intimate or personal care, providers must make every reasonable effort to make sure that they respect people’s preferences about who delivers their care and treatment, such as requesting staff of a specified gender/sex .’
For reg 11 (which deals with consent) the CQC requires information about proposed care (which surely must cover examinations) to include information about any alternatives. The CQC also states that consent procedures ‘must make sure that people are not pressured into giving consent and, where possible, plans must be made well in advance to allow time to respond to people’s questions and provide adequate information’.
To be fair to the BMA, it appears to have amended its Core Ethics Guidance in April 2026 following correspondence with this author to incorporate similar wording to the CQC’s:
‘In the case of intimate examinations, doctors must make every reasonable effort to make sure that they respect patient preferences about who delivers their care and treatment, such as requesting staff of a specified gender/sex. Where it is not possible to provide someone of the requested gender/sex, the patient should be advised of their right to refuse the medical examination or treatment.’
It would have been helpful if the BMA had advised their members to discuss with patients whether it might be possible to rearrange the examination/treatment to a time when a person of the requested sex is available, rather than simply advise the patient of their right to refuse care (and implicitly) go without it.
The GMC periodically updates its guidance for doctors, including Intimate examinations and chaperones. None of its publications make any reference to the Regulations and, in correspondence with the author, the GMC seemed unaware of them.
The CQC, in answer to an FOI request, stated that it had no information about any attempts it has made to bring regs 8-11 (and its own statutory guidance) to the attention of professional bodies such as the GMC and Royal College of Nursing.
A woman should have an absolute right, other than in an emergency, to have any consultation, examination or (in time) surgery carried out by another woman. It is clearly not sufficient to put this in statutory regulation. All medical professions, not just the NHS, should be obliged to enshrine it in their rules and to publicise this right.
Urgent initiatives should be undertaken by the NHS and medical professions to increase the number of female consultants. For decades, the UK has had more women than men graduating from medical school. GMC data in February 2025 showed that, for the first time, more women (50.04%) were registered with a licence to practise than men.
Welcoming this milestone, Dr Latifa Patel, then Chair of the BMA Representative Body, cautioned: ‘When you look more closely at the figures, we see huge variations in the type of medical specialties... These disparities are not acceptable for career progression, or for patient care as all patients should be able to benefit from the skills and expertise of a female doctor as well as a male one. We are keen to see the government and employers’ plans to help retain and attract more women into medicine.’
So the talent is there and yet, according to an FOI request, NHS England is unaware of any specific programme to increase the number of female consultants in any speciality. Aside from O&G (where 63% of doctors are female) and Paediatrics (60.8% female) the progress has been unimpressive; 2024 data from NHS Digital shows that only 16.9% of surgeons and 14.6% of urologists are women.
This is not (just) an employment rights issue. It is a matter of responding to unmet demand from many women for same-sex medical care. It may also be a question of improving standards; several studies have found that patients undergoing surgery by female surgeons experience better outcomes than those operated on by men.
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Charles Davey is a barrister at The Barrister Group, practising in personal injury law and with a keen interest in human rights, in particular the rights of women and of patients.
Equality legislation has resulted in significant improvements in the workplace for women, both in terms of pay and career paths albeit with some way still to go. It is startling, however, just how primitive our society remains in respect of the treatment of women in other areas of their lives. This article addresses one of these areas – medical care, specifically the right for women to elect examinations and care by women medical practitioners.
Hundreds of women who sought to serve in our armed forces have come forward alleging that they were sexually abused in medical examinations during recruitment. Operation Pianora, led by Wiltshire Police, is currently investigating over 500 reports of incidents from the 1970s to 2016 at locations across the UK. In When We Are at Our Most Vulnerable, a 2023 Women’s Rights Network report, Prof Jo Phoenix exposed the extraordinary number of rapes (around 1,500) and sexual assaults (around 4,000) in hospitals, almost invariably of women and girls, from January 2019 to October 2022 which includes the COVID period when access was strictly controlled.
In Breaking the Silence: Addressing Misconduct in Healthcare, the Working Party on Sexual Misconduct in Surgery (WPSMS) described a pattern of inappropriate behaviour and sexual assaults, including rape, by senior surgeons against junior female medics often in the operating theatre. The WPSMS report, published in 2023, acknowledged that doctors who perpetrate such acts on colleagues are likely to be demonstrating the same behaviour towards patients.
There are many women who for reasons of personal dignity or specific religious or cultural traditions may wish any intimate examination to be carried out by a woman. For female patients who have experienced abuse – which is most often perpetrated by men – as a child or adult, examination by a male doctor could be retraumatising.
Is it not now time to enshrine in the NHS constitution, and in the professional standards of all the medical professions, a right for all female patients to have examinations and care provided by a person of the same sex?
Procedures and conversations that are routine for healthcare professionals can be intensely personal and invasive for patients, a distinction that is too often overlooked in medical circles. It is also worth noting that in the context of a strip search by the police (no internal examination) a suspect cannot even consent to a search by a member of the opposite sex. Also, some patients, regardless of gender, delay seeking medical treatment in part because of the embarrassment of an intimate examination.
An investigation by The Times in 2019 revealed that over a million women in England did not have regular access to a female GP. According to FOI requests made by this author, neither the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) nor NHS England have ever carried out any research into the preferences of female patients as to the gender of doctors and nurses who they see in Obstetrics and Gynaecology (O&G).
In contrast, there is ample international research from Canada, Australia, the United States, Israel and Brazil that a substantial proportion of women have a strong preference for care by a female doctor, especially intimate care in O&G and urology, but also for breast examination and general surgery. In one analysis (Sao Paulo Medical Journal 2022, 140(1)) researchers separated out respondents by age. The highest preference for a same-gender physician was in the youngest group of women – under 44.
The previous government’s 10-year Women’s Health Strategy for England published in 2022 was completely silent on this issue. The King’s Fund report, Women’s experience of gynaecological and urogynaecological services in primary and secondary care, commissioned by DHSC and published in 2019, is similarly silent. In April 2026, the government published a Renewed Women’s Health Strategy for England. Promising to give women voice, agency and choice – while acknowledging that the ‘NHS has a problem with basic, everyday sexism and an appalling culture of medical misogyny’ – it is also silent on any right to elect same-sex medical care.
The position of the General Medical Council (GMC) is that: ‘There is no legal right for patients to be treated by a doctor of the same birth sex.’
The British Medical Association (BMA) Core Ethics Guidance states: ‘[T]here is no statuory requirement for the NHS to provide a healthcare professional of the same gender in any healthcare setting.’
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the right to respect for private and family life. ‘Private life’ has been interpreted broadly by the courts and, as the Equality and Human Rights Commission has asserted, includes the right to control who sees and touches your body. There is no exemption for health care and medical examinations.
The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 provide that:
‘the care and treatment of service users must… (c) reflect their preferences’ reg 9 (1)(c).
Under reg10 (2) a registered service provider is required to ensure the privacy of the service user and have regard to any relevant protected characteristics. Sex is a protected characteristic.
The statutory guidance on the Regulations published by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) sets out the fundamental standards below which care must never fall. The CQC specifically states for reg 9(3) that information given to a service user must include: ‘All possible relevant or appropriate care and treatment options.’ That must surely include, for a woman, being informed about the option of receiving an intimate examination or care from a woman practitioner and that care or examination can be delayed until a practitioner of the same gender becomes available.
CQC guidance stipulates that under reg 10(1) providers must make sure that people have privacy when they need and want it and that: ‘Staff must respect people’s personal preferences, lifestyle and care choices.’ The CQC goes on to say:
‘ When providing intimate or personal care, providers must make every reasonable effort to make sure that they respect people’s preferences about who delivers their care and treatment, such as requesting staff of a specified gender/sex .’
For reg 11 (which deals with consent) the CQC requires information about proposed care (which surely must cover examinations) to include information about any alternatives. The CQC also states that consent procedures ‘must make sure that people are not pressured into giving consent and, where possible, plans must be made well in advance to allow time to respond to people’s questions and provide adequate information’.
To be fair to the BMA, it appears to have amended its Core Ethics Guidance in April 2026 following correspondence with this author to incorporate similar wording to the CQC’s:
‘In the case of intimate examinations, doctors must make every reasonable effort to make sure that they respect patient preferences about who delivers their care and treatment, such as requesting staff of a specified gender/sex. Where it is not possible to provide someone of the requested gender/sex, the patient should be advised of their right to refuse the medical examination or treatment.’
It would have been helpful if the BMA had advised their members to discuss with patients whether it might be possible to rearrange the examination/treatment to a time when a person of the requested sex is available, rather than simply advise the patient of their right to refuse care (and implicitly) go without it.
The GMC periodically updates its guidance for doctors, including Intimate examinations and chaperones. None of its publications make any reference to the Regulations and, in correspondence with the author, the GMC seemed unaware of them.
The CQC, in answer to an FOI request, stated that it had no information about any attempts it has made to bring regs 8-11 (and its own statutory guidance) to the attention of professional bodies such as the GMC and Royal College of Nursing.
A woman should have an absolute right, other than in an emergency, to have any consultation, examination or (in time) surgery carried out by another woman. It is clearly not sufficient to put this in statutory regulation. All medical professions, not just the NHS, should be obliged to enshrine it in their rules and to publicise this right.
Urgent initiatives should be undertaken by the NHS and medical professions to increase the number of female consultants. For decades, the UK has had more women than men graduating from medical school. GMC data in February 2025 showed that, for the first time, more women (50.04%) were registered with a licence to practise than men.
Welcoming this milestone, Dr Latifa Patel, then Chair of the BMA Representative Body, cautioned: ‘When you look more closely at the figures, we see huge variations in the type of medical specialties... These disparities are not acceptable for career progression, or for patient care as all patients should be able to benefit from the skills and expertise of a female doctor as well as a male one. We are keen to see the government and employers’ plans to help retain and attract more women into medicine.’
So the talent is there and yet, according to an FOI request, NHS England is unaware of any specific programme to increase the number of female consultants in any speciality. Aside from O&G (where 63% of doctors are female) and Paediatrics (60.8% female) the progress has been unimpressive; 2024 data from NHS Digital shows that only 16.9% of surgeons and 14.6% of urologists are women.
This is not (just) an employment rights issue. It is a matter of responding to unmet demand from many women for same-sex medical care. It may also be a question of improving standards; several studies have found that patients undergoing surgery by female surgeons experience better outcomes than those operated on by men.
In an era of patient-centred care and growing concern over misconduct in medical settings, why do women still lack the right to choose women consultants for examination and treatment? Charles Davey investigates
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