‘New Tavistock’ cancels Mermaids training after backlash

An NHS trust has scrapped staff training by the controversial trans-activist group Mermaids following an outcry from medics.

The group is currently under investigation by the Charity Commission but was due to run training sessions at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM).

The Trust is set to assume responsibility for specialist mental health support from the soon-to-be-closed Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS).

‘Discredited’

SLaM is a Stonewall Diversity Champion and will provide specialist mental health services in partnership with Great Ormond Street and Evelina London Children’s Hospitals under the new model.

It booked a number of Mermaids training sessions ahead of its expected takeover of gender identity services in the spring, prompting the medics who exposed GIDS to raise serious concerns.

Dr Marcus Evans, a former consultant psychotherapist at the Tavistock, said: “The old service system is discredited.

“We need a completely different approach that avoids preoccupation with gender to the exclusion of all other facets of the family, child and young person’s personality and development.”

Statutory inquiry

Sue Evans, a Tavistock nurse who first raised concerns in 2005, said based on past experience she would be concerned that Mermaids would be “promoting an affirmation-only model which lacks an evidence base”.

A spokesman for SLaM confirmed that a decision has been made to “stop our work with Mermaids”.

Last year, the Charity Commission opened a full statutory inquiry into Mermaids after issues emerged about its governance and management.

In October, a trustee resigned after attention was brought to a paper he delivered in 2011 that attempted to normalise sexual acts with children. In the same month, it was revealed that the scandal-hit group employed a man who had posed for highly sexualised photographs and posted them online.