NHS England has issued a new standard requiring staff to “record sexual orientation at every face to face contact with the patient, where no record of this data already exists”. The NHS wants all health and social care bodies to be asking the question by April 2019. Stonewall, the gay rights campaign group, welcomed the new system and said it was “vital sexual orientation is considered in health assessments”. “We have been calling for sexual orientation to be considered as other protected characteristics for over a decade,” a spokeswoman said. “This move will also help health services gather evidence on and understand the needs of LGB people.

Source: The Guardian October 15, 2017 08:03 UTC