Woke health chiefs at Sussex Health and Care have banned the word ‘normal’ – amid concerns it makes patients feel alienated.
The trust has also told doctors and nurses that people in need of care should no longer be referred to as patients, in case they find it inappropriate or intimidating.
Rather, patients should be referred to as an ‘expert by experience,’ ‘customer’ or ‘consumer’.
The guide added clinicians should also avoid terms like ‘assessment’, ‘able-bodied’ and ‘discharged’, to avoid scaring anxious patients.
Instead – following a two-year taxpayer-funded investigation – chiefs have landed on the term ‘warm handover’.
Bosses at the trust argued that these terms, which have been used for decades among medical professionals, could be ‘uncomfortable, offensive or triggering’.
Experts behind the investigation added that paid staff should be aware of their colleagues’ language in the workplace, and ‘challenge’ them if they hear inappropriate language being used.
In the 26-page handbook that came out of focus groups and workshops, bosses wrote: ‘Language has power. It can help a person to feel understood, and validate their experiences, or could make them feel alienated and potentially cause harm.’
Feedback highlighted that the term ‘assessment’ can make patients feel like they are being judged on their ability to pass a hidden test, while the word ‘discharge’ can feel very final.
Woke health chiefs at Sussex Health & Care have banned the word ‘normal’ – amid concerns it makes patients feel alienated
Elsewhere in the ‘guide to language for mental health’ report, contributors complained about the world ‘normal’ as they disliked the ‘label’ and potential stigma attached to a formal diagnosis – or there lack of.
The guide continued that staff treating those with mental health issues should no longer describe patients who fail to turn up to appointments as ‘hard to reach’ or ‘difficult to engage’.
Instead they should be called ‘under-represented’ or ‘under-served.’
The trust have also banned the term ‘people with autism’, favouring ‘autistic people’ or ‘people on the autism spectrum,’ because autistic people dislike person-first language.
Meanwhile, people with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder prefer to be called a person with ADHD.
A number of critics have hit out against the new guidelines, claiming the trust is prioritising non-English speakers.
Lord Young, leader of the Free Speech Union, told The Sun: ‘I can see the argument for not using a technical term like “myocardial infarction” instead of heart attack, but “patient?”‘
He added that the ‘constantly changing modern dialect’ adopted by the NHS is putting increasing numbers of medical staff at risk of unfair punishment for ‘not being fluent in woke-ish’.
‘The result is that more and more NHS employees, particularly older employees, are finding themselves under investigation for being culturally insensitive.’
Sussex Health and Care and the Department of Health and Social Care have been contacted for comment.
It comes just months after doctors and nurses at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation trust were told to stop using traditional sayings such as ‘the early bird catches the worm’ – because they may not translate well across other cultures.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in south London said the pronouns ‘xey/xem’ can be used by staff at work.
The trust also urged staff to apologise if they used the ‘wrong’ pronouns for colleagues, stressing the move was a great way ‘to create an inclusive environment and demonstrate inclusion in the workplace’.
In 2024, the NHS again came under fire for publishing a menopause policy which suggested: ‘Not everyone who experiences menopause is a woman’.
Women’s rights groups were quick to anger, arguing that the ‘outrageous’ document risks causing confusion, accusing the NHS of promoting an ‘activist agenda’.
Campaigners also criticised the use of woke ‘non-sex language’ such as ‘people affected by the menopause’, rather than ‘women’.
It comes after successive health secretaries have told the NHS to stop erasing women from its publications and to use sex-based language on its health advice pages, including those on women-specific cancers.
NHS England published the ‘National Menopause People Policy Framework’ on its website but later removed it, claiming it had been issued in error when contacted by the Daily Mail.