‘Secretive’ gender clinics back down over puberty blocker data
by Eleanor Hayward and James Beal, The Times:
Six NHS trusts had initially refused to divulge information on trans children for the Cass review of gender services but will now do so.
Adult NHS gender clinics have bowed to pressure to share missing data on the outcomes of 9,000 patients who were treated as children at the Tavistock clinic.
Six NHS Trusts thwarted a landmark review published by Dr Hilary Cass this week by refusing to co-operate with research into the long-term impact of prescribing puberty blockers and sex hormones.
Cass had commissioned a team at the University of York to examine how thousands of trans children fared after being transferred to adult NHS services from the age of 16.
But the research had to be abandoned after six of the seven NHS adult clinics refused to participate, with some expressing unfounded concerns over “interference from government ministers”. Cass described their failure to share data as “co-ordinated” and “ideologically driven”.
Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, was informed on Thursday night that the adult clinics have now backed down and agreed to comply, after she ordered them to end a “culture of secrecy and ideology”.
Read also: Kemi Badenoch attacks gender ‘cowardice’ of NHS, politics and police, The Times
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