Two elderly women terrorised on mixed ward

The pensioners, aged 76 and 82, were said to have been attacked in the early hours of the morning.

Police were called to the scene, in an assessment unit at the Royal Bolton Hospital.

Officers are working with health trust bosses to establish exactly what happened. The women, one of whom suffers from a mental disorder, are being offered support from hospital staff.

The alleged incident highlights the Government's failure to fulfil its pledge to rid the NHS of mixedsex wards, criticised by experts and patients' groups as undignified and humiliating.

As long ago as 1996, Tony Blair, then in Opposition, said he did not believe it was 'beyond the wit of Government and health administrators' to get rid of mixed- sex wards. Labour promised to do so in both 1997 and 2001.

The Daily Mail has been campaigning for all patients to be treated on single-sex wards, but earlier this year it emerged that one in six hospital trusts have failed to meet official guidelines on not having male and female patients sharing general wards.

Alarmingly, the latest alleged incident, shortly before 3am last Monday, happened at one of the trusts which does comply. The Royal Bolton Hospital operates a mixed- sex policy only in 'assessment units' such as the accident and emergency and clinical decisions departments and in specialist units such as intensive care and the coronary ward.

Its director of nursing, Lesley Doherty, said: "These are very serious charges. We will be holding a full internal inquiry. If there are any actions to be taken, these will be implemented promptly."

Hospitals are allowed to classify wards as single-sex even if it is only the individual bays which are not mixed, rather than the ward as a whole. Bays are sometimes separated only by curtains.

Despite the official rules, surveys show most patients regard such wards as still mixed.

Earlier this year it emerged that 28 out of 172 trusts in England had failed to achieve even that limited target - Royal Bolton Hospital was one of those which did.

However three out of ten inpatients there said they had shared a sleeping area with someone of the opposite sex on admission, according to a Healthcare Commission questionnaire last year.

This was significantly above the average for England.

Last night local politicians demanded an end to all mixed-sex wards at the hospital. Andy Morgan, Tory chairman of Bolton council's health scrutiny committee, said: "I demand an urgent inquiry. There are no excuses for mixed-sex wards nowadays. This is about dignity and respect."

David Crausby, Labour MP for Bolton North-East, said: "Even if it costs a bit more, I'm sure the majority of the public would support spending money in this way."

A recent study by the National Patient Safety Agency revealed that as many as 100 people have been raped, sexually assaulted or harassed in NHS mental health units in just two years.

• A 41-year-old man appeared in court last week charged with sexually touching a woman without consent and sexual activity with a woman with a mental disorder. He was remanded in custody.