Healthcare professionals in the UK need to brush up on their non-straight relationship knowledge, apparently.

In a new survey carried out by gay equality organisation Stonewall and De Montfort University, a large proportion of lesbian and bisexual respondents said they come up against confusion in doctors' surgeries across the land.

One disillusioned customer told Pink News it is "continually assumed" she is straight when she pops in for a check-up.

"I am often lectured about safe sex and preventing pregnancy without being given a chance to say that I do not sleep with men anymore," she explained.

Morgan, a 37-year-old from the north-west, chipped in with her tale of body-themed boo boos: "In the course of an interview about my pelvic floor muscles, I mentioned to a physiotherapist that I used a dildo and she refused to talk to me after that!"

London dweller Abigail posed another apparently tricky question to a nurse: "I asked her whether penetrative sex with toys was risky in respective of cervical cancer or whether the risk factor only related to penetration by a penis.

"She had no idea."

Other sources of surgery-centred confusion revealed by the poll of 6,000 people included smears, STI tests and the stress often caused by coming out to friends and family.

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