NHS managers have admitted that all their hospital wards are shared by male and female patients - days after insisting most were single-sex.

Julie Hartley-Jones, chief nurse at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, was forced to make the climbdown after a press statement released last week claimed there were single-sex wards in "almost every area", in line with the Government's privacy and dignity guidelines.

Her actions came after readers contacted the Oxford Mail to relay their own experiences of mixed-sex hospital environments - including shared toilets and showers - which they claim were intimidating and unnerving.

A patient watchdog, which monitors the ORH, will investigate, and trust press officers have apologised for releasing their original statement, which was issued after a patient survey revealed 50 per cent of people shared rooms with the opposite sex while staying in hospital.

Miss Hartley-Jones said all 99 wards at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital, Churchill Hospital and Radcliffe Infirmary, and The Horton, Banbury, were mixed sex.

She said although staff did their best to segregate patients in different bays, bed shortages made the issue a lower priority than admitting a person to a ward.

She said: "The guidelines are very clear that privacy and dignity have to be acknowledged, but we do realise we have to make progress in some areas. "There are no single-sex wards. Although they are mixed-sex, we do our best not to mix bays. We are mindful of closing off the bays as much as possible, so people get their privacy as much as possible.

"We also try to have male and female toilets at either end of the wards. Do we move a woman into a bay with three men, so she can have a comfortable bed, or do we leave her in an assessment area until we have a bed in an all-female area?

"At the end of the day, we'll move the patient. I have to say our main priority over anything else is getting patients into beds."

Miss Hartley-Jones said assessment areas, like the JR's surgical emergency and medical assessment units, were mixed sex because patients were only meant to stay until they were transferred to a ward. It was also difficult to segregate individual specialist wards. She said: "Specialist wards always alert patients before they come in. We should let them know and if they have concerns we let the staff know.

"Assessment areas are mixed, but it should only be for a short period. We have to hold our hands up and say we have to do some more work to get it right."

Mixed wards should have been phased out in 95 per cent of hospitals nationwide by 2002. Neighbouring hospitals have worked hard to comply with the Government target.