Young fast-tracked for puberty blockers after single consultation
CHILDREN were referred for puberty blockers after just one consultation at the Tavistock Clinic, it has emerged amid calls for use of the drugs to be stopped immediately.
After the NHS said it was closing the clinic amid safety fears, whistleblowers revealed the speed with which young people were placed on a medical pathway. Dr Hilary Cass, who is leading a major review of the service, has said the drugs could “rewire neural circuits” and affect parts of the brain responsible for decision-making and judgment.
The NHS has committed to urgent research on the impact and both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have pledged to consider restricting the use of puberty blockers if they win the Tory leadership election. Parent groups last night called for ministers to go further and immediately ban the drugs for use in treating gender dysphoria over concerns over the life-long damage that they are causing. There were also calls for a public inquiry into the way that the Tavistock, the only clinic for treating transgender children, was operated and why repeated concerns stretching back almost two decades were ignored.
Dr David Bell, who blew the whistle on practices at the clinic in a report in 2018, said the service had “failed” children and done “huge damage”.
“That means there’s a growing group of detransitioners, who will not go anywhere near the Tavistock and will not go anywhere near the NHS actually, because they feel so terribly let down.
These were kids who said I’m a girl or I’m a boy and they were affirmed.
“They took the drugs and they went to opposite sex hormones and they had parts of their body removed, their breasts, their vaginas.
“Now, as one girl put it to me, I don’t have the body of a man, I’ve got the body of a mutilated woman and that’s what I have to live with.”
Dr Bell said he was aware of one child who was referred for puberty blockers after just one session while the “regime” was four to six hour-long appointments which he said was “ludicrously few”. He said the bar for prescribing puberty blockers should be “very much higher. It may be possible, in one or two cases, that it has to be done, but the way they’ve been used is totally inappropriate.”
A spokesman for the Tavistock clinic said: “GIDS [the Gender Identity Development Service at Tavistock] works to NHS England’s specification, which states that assessments are ‘typically three to six appointments, depending on the individual’. GIDS works on a caseby-case basis with every young person individually, with no preconceived outcome of what path they may take, and only the minority access any physical treatment while with the service.
“Referring to the endocrinology team after fewer than four sessions would be very unusual – a recent study showed there were an average of 10 appointments before referral.”
NHS England said it would be following recommendations made in the Cass review to shut the Tavistock Clinic and move young people into regional centres that take a more “holistic” approach.