NHS advises GPs to shun notorious trans-affirming clinic

London doctors have been warned not to give children experimental puberty-blocking drugs on the request of rogue clinic GenderGP.

An NHS “urgent safety alert” to GPs in south-east London said they are “strongly encouraged not to initiate prescribing and/or engage with Gender GP”, which does not “provide physiological or psychological support or follow up of patients”.

The clinic has issued prescriptions from overseas since the General Medical Council banned its founder Dr Helen Webberley from working in the UK in 2018, after she was found running her illegal online clinic from her home in Wales.

Unsafe

Dr Louise Irvine, GP and co-chairman of the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender, said: “If the service specification for the NHS is that it is safe, good practice not to provide puberty blockers outside of clinical trials but people can still get them privately, then all you are doing is allowing them to bypass those conditions”.

“If something is not safe for the NHS, then it is not safe for private providers. It is the job of the Government to ensure safety and they have an overarching duty of care to young people.”

In response, GenderGP claimed: “Gender-affirming care saves lives and absolutely needs to be accessible for trans people of all ages.”

Parents

Last year, NHS England announced that it would no longer ‘routinely commission’ puberty blockers for gender-confused children and launched an investigation after Dr Hilary Cass highlighted significant “uncertainties” surrounding the drugs.

In a public consultation on proposed changes to the Children and Young People’s Gender Incongruence Service’s referral pathway, the NHS also said that children should no longer be referred to gender clinics without parental consent.

Currently, teachers and social workers are allowed to refer gender-confused children of any age behind parents’ backs. But the NHS has now proposed a minimum age limit of seven years old for referral into the service, even if a younger child has parental consent, after kids as young as four were referred to the Tavistock clinic.