Steve Barclay, Suella Braverman and Michelle Donelan lashed out at the “slow creep of wokeism” in public bodies.
Mr Barclay ordered health officials to ditch an NHS training manual that told staff to declare their pronouns to patients.
The Health Secretary instructed that the materials be withdrawn amid fury over the “ideological dogma” spreading through the service.
The training module, issued by Health Education England, said doctors, nurses and other staff should start conversations with patients by declaring their own pronoun.
Staff were advised to inform patients of pronouns – such as he/him, she/her or they/them – in order to create a “safe space for trans, non-binary, intersex and gender non conforming people”.
Mr Barclay used his speech to the Tory party conference to announce that trans women will be banned from female wards, under plans to restore “common sense” to the NHS.
READ MORE: Trans women set to be banned from female wards under Health Secretary plans
He also announced the return of “sex specific” language to the NHS – after references to women were expunged from advice on the menopause and on diseases such as cervical and ovarian cancer.
Mr Barclay went on to reveal that he has intervened “and stopped the NHS ordering staff to declare their pronouns to each new patient” as part of efforts to restore “simple common sense” to the NHS.
“I know as Conservatives, we know what a woman is,” he said, to applause.
Helen Joyce, director of advocacy for campaign group Sex Matters welcomed the shift.
She said: “During the past decade the entire NHS has been captured by the extreme transactivist lobby. They’ve written policies saying that patients’ self-declared ‘gender identities’ are more important than their actual biological sex – which is absurd when you’re talking about health care. And they say everyone, both staff and patients, should declare their pronouns, when the reality is it’s obvious what sex almost everyone is at first sight. This ideology needs to be removed from every part of the NHS, for everyone’s sake.”
The training manual was issued by Health Education England, a training and education body which is now being merged with NHS England.
Earlier this year Labour leader Keir Starmer said Labour would back single sex wards, based on biological sex.
It came after he sought to clarify his stance on transgender issues by stating that 99.9 per cent of women “of course haven’t got a penis” having previously vowed to change the law in favour of self-identification.
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Mr Barclay called for a “relentless focus on patient outcomes” and prioritisation of frontline resources.
“It does not mean spending huge sums of taxpayer’s money on diversity consultants or hiring bloated internal diversity and inclusion teams,” he said.
“And it does not mean ignoring patient’s voices – especially women’s voices when it comes to the importance of biological sex in healthcare. If we do not get this right now, the long-term consequences could be very serious for the protection of women and future generations.”
Home Secretary Suella Braverman gave her backing to the plans, telling broadcasters on a visit to Bolton: “Trans women have no place in women’s wards or indeed any safe space relating to biological women.
“And the Health Secretary is absolutely right to clarify and make it clear that biological men should not have treatments in the same wards and in the same safe spaces as biological women.
“This is about protecting women’s dignity, and women’s safety and women’s privacy. And that’s why I’m incredibly supportive and I welcome the announcement today by the Health Secretary.”
But a spokesperson for Stonewall said: “This is a cynical attempt by the Secretary of State to ‘look busy’ instead of getting on with the graft of implementing the Women’s Health Strategy, and, besides being unworkable, all it will achieve is to restrict access to healthcare for trans women, by making it humiliating and dangerous.”
Ms Donelan also announced a review into the use of sex and gender questions in scientific research and statistics, including in public bodies, warning the “guiding light” of science is under attack from the “slow creep of wokeism”.
In her speech to the conference the Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary said: “We are safeguarding scientific research from the denial of biology and the steady creep of political correctness. We are taking a stand before it suffocates Britain’s very identity and our values entirely. This is why we are depoliticising science.”
A Tory London Assembly member was ejected from Ms Braverman’s conference speech at the Manchetser conference, accusing her of making his party look “transphobic”.
Andrew Boff was escorted from the premises after heckling Ms Braverman.
“Our party has a proud record of standing up for LGBT+ rights and she is destroying it,” he said.
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