NHS gender service criticised for using discredited organisation’s guidance

An NHS gender service has been criticised for using guidance from an organisation discredited by the Cass Report.

The Nottingham Young People’s Gender Service was set up in April to support former patients of the Tavistock clinic, which was closed after being deemed ‘not fit for purpose’.

But the new clinic is still operating in line with guidance from the controversial World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), specifying in a job description that the postholder needed to work in a “gender affirming manner”.

’Tavistock v2’

Helen Joyce, Director of Advocacy at the women’s rights charity Sex Matters, explained that the WPATH guidance “promoted childhood social transition without evidence that this was safe or beneficial”.

She continued: “The point of closing the disgraced Tavistock clinic in London was to learn from its mistakes and replace it with something better.

“This job ad is a deeply concerning sign that the Nottingham clinic risks becoming Tavistock v2.”

’Extremely concerning’

Co-chairman of the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender Dr Louise Irvine said it is “extremely concerning” that the gender service is “continuing to follow the discredited medicalised ‘affirmative’ approach to children and young people with gender dysphoria”.

She said: “This flies in the face of the Cass review whose findings were supposedly accepted by NHS England and the government.”

A spokesman from Bayswater Support Group, an organisation supporting families with gender-confused children, said: “It is alarming to hear that despite Cass and NHS England distancing themselves from WPATH due to its lack of credibility, its treatment guidelines are still being referenced as ‘essential’ knowledge for working with children at one of the new centres.”

NHS response

In response to these concerns, an NHS spokesman said: “the trust has acknowledged that old terminology was used in the job advertisement and is amending it”.

He continued: “All the NHS’s new children’s gender services are being established closely in line with recommendations from the Cass Review.”