Mixed-sex ward target 'to be missed'

Many women patients prefer single sex wards

In November a survey commissioned by this programme revealed that the government would almost certainly fail in one of its key targets - to scrap mixed sex wards within the NHS.

The national plan for the NHS stated that, by 2002, only 5% of health authority areas should still have such wards.

However, according to our research, many health authorities across the country will not be able to achieve that target - indeed, our survey puts the figure at nearer 25%.

Gillian Hargreaves began her exclusive report in Lymington, in the New Forest, where she had been finding out under what kind of pressures health authorities are forced to operate.