by Geraldine Scott, The Times
A review found that accurate data on biological sex has been lost for a decade, affecting care
Doctors will be banned from giving transgender children a new NHS record after it emerged that biological sex had been erased from official data.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said it was wrong that doctors were changing the NHS numbers of children if they changed gender. He has told the health service to stop giving out new NHS numbers to under-18s.
A review commissioned by the last government and released on Wednesday found that the word “gender” started to replace “sex” in the collection of data in the 1990s and that for the past ten years “robust and accurate data on biological sex” had been lost.
Cancer referrals were missed and previous convictions were overlooked because biological sex had been erased from official data on health, crime and education. In medicine, adults and children have been able to request their gender is changed on their medical record. When this happens, a new NHS number and, therefore, medical record would be created.
The review, led by Professor Alice Sullivan of University College London, reported how in one case a paediatrician said that a child had been brought up in the preferred gender of the mother, which was different to their birth sex.
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