More than half of wards at Oxfordshire's major hospitals are now single-sex, just seven months after the Oxford Mail revealed that all 99 wards in the county were mixed.

Managers at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital, Churchill Hospital and Radcliffe Infirmary, and The Horton Hospital in Banbury, said male and female patients on 27 of their wards are now always segregated.

It comes seven months after chief nurse Julie Hartley-Jones admitted all 99 wards across the four sites were mixed, when a patient survey revealed 50 per cent of people shared rooms with the opposite sex while staying in hospital

Speaking at an ORH Patient and Public Involvement Forum meeting, associate chief nurse Lesley Dunstone said the trust still had not reached a Government target for men and women to be treated in different areas.

Although emergency areas, children's wards and outpatients -- totalling 49 wards -- would always be mixed, a lot of work was being done on the remaining 51 wards, where, according to a recent audit, 53 per cent were already segregated.

Another 29 per cent -- 15 wards -- were sometimes mixed, 14 per cent were frequently mixed and four per cent -- making up two wards -- were always mixed.

Mrs Dunstone said: "One of the biggest problems we have in Oxford is this incredible competition between trying to achieve segregation, and the pressures of emergency treatment and high bed occupancy rates. Because of the very specialised services we offer, it does make segregation much more difficult. There's often no spare capacity to move patients from mixed bays. But we try to move them to single bays within 48 hours."

She said in some areas high-dependency patients needed to be in bays close to nurses, irrespective of their gender. But she said a policy was now being drawn up to make further progress.

Openings to bays were being narrowed, to increase privacy and reduce noise, male and female toilets were being clearly labelled, and bathrooms locks installed.

Miss Dunstone said: "I was horrified that there were wash areas that still didn't have locks.

"We feel we've made a good start, but know we're certainly not there yet."