The NHS is letting down its nurses

Imagine paying your subs for years, only to find that your union has opened the changing room door at your workplace to perverts. Not only that, but the shop stewards, officers and reps who promised to protect your rights as a worker have labelled you a fascist and sided with your employer. This is the reality for millions of employees across the UK — mostly women — who simply want the right to have single-sex facilities.

The Darlington Five are a group of nurses who found themselves in exactly this situation. The women took on their NHS employer after they were told to educate themselves into feeling comfortable with sharing a changing room with a man. But rather than waiting for the brocialists within unions to stand up for them, they set up their own union, the Darlington Nurses’ Union (DNU).

Following the launch, Bethany Hutchison who is now President of the DNU, said that the protected characteristic of gender reassignment must not override biological sex:

The rights and dignity of women should be protected, including the elementary right to have exclusive access to single-sex changing rooms.

Women who do not want to undress in front of a sexually active biological male have been told they need to be re-educated, be more inclusive and open their minds. This is unacceptable and must be challenged.

The DNU, the first explicitly gender critical workplace union, was formed following a bitter dispute. Since August 2023, female staff at Darlington Memorial Hospital have been forced to share their changing room with a 26-year-old trans-identified male who calls himself “Rose”. By his own admission, “Rose” does not take cross-sex hormones as he and his female partner are trying to conceive a child. He does not have a gender recognition certificate. But the NHS trust’s policy allows its staff to self-identify into whichever bathroom and changing room they choose.

The nurses have alleged that “Rose” stares openly at their breasts when they are in a state of undress and lingers in their changing room “longer than necessary”. The open plan space does not have individual changing cubicles, so the women have no escape from “Rose” when they are undressing. Neither the traumatic backgrounds nor religious sensibilities of the women have been considered, and obviously they have found this situation “intimidating and upsetting”.

When they complained to the hospital’s management about this intolerable situation, the women were ignored. However, they did suddenly find themselves in an “impromptu meeting” at which an HR manager told them they “need to compromise”. They were instructed by HR to “be more inclusive”, “broaden their mindset”, and “be educated and attend training”. Following this offensive and dismissive response, the nurses had no choice but to instigate legal proceedings against County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust.

The women in Darlington are not the only nurses who’ve found themselves at the sharp end of transgender inclusion policies. Workers across the public sector are facing the same issue, with nowhere to turn for support. Sandie Peggie is another nurse let down by her NHS employer. 

Two weeks ago, at the exact moment the 50-year-old nurse was explaining to an employment tribunal why she felt threatened by a man who wanted to use the women’s changing room at her workplace, delegates at Unison’s “women’s” conference backed a motion stating, “That Trans Women are women and Trans men are men.”

Unison president Steve North was moved to chirp on X that no one had spoken against the motion. “In a world of increasing hate and division, I’m proud that our union is a beacon of unity,” he/him added.

Arguably, Unison is united, because those who dare to disagree are made unwelcome, smeared as bigots, and left without representation. If union leaders had the wit to look outside the BlueSky bubble, they’d realise that standing with nurses would boost their numbers and indeed public support. 

There was a time when unions represented their members, ensuring fair treatment in the workplace and holding bosses to account when workers were treated unfairly. Today, it seems unions exist to promote the beliefs of an elite class. From critical race theory to gender ideology, the opinions valued by the comrades in union branches across the country are the same as those promoted by vacuous Hollywood celebs and smug BBC presenters. 

With a myopic and insular focus on microaggressions and identity tick boxes, the modern labour movement has educated itself into irrelevance, losing the confidence and support of the wider public. 

Unison president Steve North is typical of this, seemingly more concerned about losing the approval of his comrades than advocating for women’s most basic human rights at work. Indeed, he accused Health Secretary Wes Streeting of “pandering to anti-trans bigotry” when he agreed to meet with the nurses to hear their concerns. Perhaps this signals a deeper problem, unions were developed by men and for men; that women are also workers may still rest uneasily. Ultimately, unions had a decision to make, whether to continue as vehicles for worker representation or to become instruments of social engineering. The choice Unison has made is clear.

Believing in nonsense like transgenderism is a luxury for the laptop class — people who spend their days writing policy documents, not inserting catheters or helping to deliver babies. For those working on the front lines of healthcare, biological reality isn’t a matter of debate; it’s a daily fact of life. The DNU president is clearly more alive to this than the bloated, out-of-touch establishment unions. As Hutchinson rails:

We say to women out there across the NHS and other professions: you do not have to suffer on your own in silence. You don’t have to give in to bullying and harassment or lying about scientific truth. Join us or start your own union which protects your rights in the workplace. This is not just about protecting us, but about protecting sisters, mums, wives and daughters from these dangerous policies.

The staff let down by the NHS don’t need lectures; they need representation. And if the unions won’t provide it, they’ll take their power elsewhere. The Darlington nurses did just that, and it’s only a matter of time before more follow suit.