Tavistock data review

Its deliberate. It helps maintain the victim hood required to continue to mOw unreasonable demands and get them met.

Who's not gonna feel sorry for health care neglect in trans people. They probably won't even realise its self inflicted

I’m not a lawyer and don’t know where in the GRA this might be but it’s definitely the case that criminal and corporate liability plus (in this case, poorly thought through and ill defined, sexist GRA) amounts to a chilling effect on willingness to share data.

Think back to the Data Protection Act pre GDPR and all the ‘computer says no’ culture around that- also people refusing stuff and blaming ‘health and safety’. People will always be risk averse around scary criminal sanctions and huge corporate fines- but in complex or badly-written law their caution may or may not correspond with what the law actually allows them to do.

It sounds like the very real and necessary facts are coming up hard against ideology and people's feelings/wishes, here.

Someone may find various things in their medical history upsetting (I found reading the notes on DS' birth quite hard going) but they are important to be recorded accurately.

Many procedures, histories and issues involve things we'd rather not be reminded of, I'm sure. And by its nature medical data is surely intensely personal and private and thus would have or should have extremely stringent privacy protocols in place.

Erasing medical records seems so utterly a daft thing to do. Those are essential! I have no memory of various procedures - what happened during childbirth, for example, is a total blur. I certainly don't recall my vaccination schedule, was astonished to find that the NHS had a detailed from-birth record of it.

The NHS are expecting trans people to just remember everything and recount it accurately? Surely that's not really happening?

Is it not the NHS confidentiality laws that allow someone to erase their medical records?

Changing those laws would still not allow the information to be shared if the person has a GRA as S22 would prohibit it.

So I'm guessing it is S22 that will be changed to allow the sharing of (some) health data?

Things feel like they're really moving in the right direction now. I wouldn't mind him for PM, either.

Other issues aside, please don't move him from health at present, there's still so much to do.

Thoughtful comments from PPs.

This is really good news.

It seems like the service is not really fit for purpose. The waiting times are ridiculous, which I think means that by the time children and young people are seen, they (and their parents) may see hormonal intervention as the only good outcome.

I feel timely support exploring gender as a facet of identity would be much more beneficial. Forcing people to wait 3+ years for that doesn't help.

Hopefully this review will lead to a better, more ethically robust and properly funded service for young people

This is excellent news

impartial assessment of the facts is all we want (well and sensible action based on those facts)

the ‘La la la can’t hear you’ years are truly coming to an end

Does anyone know which part of the GRA:

• says you can (in effect) erase your medical records?
• says an order must be made to change what's happened here?

S22 of the GRA does allow for the Sec of State to change the bit about disclosure and what's a related offence. But I just can't see the link with health.

I dont even know why its a thing. Its unbelievable that this level.if entitlement is indulged.

Why can't people accept that their transition matters to them and them only. And it's not the job if everyone else to be involved in it some how. You cant claim something is mot a mental.health condition then behave as if it is by getting triggered etc when reality is acknowledged. You cannot have it both ways.

And it is not the job if medical.staff to play along.

I've never understood why changing gender markers with the GP seems to be such an important rite of passage for children who believe they are trans.

Even the GIDS website advise children that this is what they should be doing

How do I change my name on GP Records?

There is a simple process for this, which is accepted by many government departments including the Department of Health:

the patient tells their GP, or directly informs the CCG, that they are transitioning and that in future they would be known by their new name and gender. They can write a “statutory declaration”, they may have a deed poll document, or they may simply make the request. This request should be in writing, signed by the patient

the GP writes to the Registration Office at the CCG. The GP may write a letter of support confirming the gender role change and that this change is intended to be permanent, but this is not a requirement

the Registration Office then writes to the Personal Demographics’ Service National Back Office. The National Back Office will create a new identity with a new NHS number and requests the records held by the patient’s GP. These records are then transferred to the new identity and forwarded to the GP

on receipt, the GP surgery changes any remaining patient information including the gender marker, pronouns and names

Trans patients have a legal right to change their name and gender on their NHS records and would be able to bring a civil claim against any GP or practice which I refused to accede their request.

gids.nhs.uk/young-people/

Changing the NHS number is arguably discriminatory against trans people. The secrecy thing is all because of the climate created by the GRA which imposes penalities on employers who reveal someone's trans status, thereby creating a culture which says that trans status must be hidden.

Despite its centralised nature, which on some levels works very well indeed, there is a fundamental problem with coordination within the NHS and this issue is one example. Any patient with chronic, multiple health problems being looked after by different departments (even within the same Trust) will tell you their experiences of lack of continuity and communication between the elements. I think we assume that because of electronic records, our care is more joined up than it often is.

Excellent news!

TRAs if you are so convinced problems are so minute, you’ll welcome this with open arms as a means to vindicate your position.

I think we will learn that even ‘successful’ transitions will have significant negative side effects. Even from discussions here with transitioned males, they admit they have bladder issues or some negative side effect.

But surely this triggering isn’t happening, because apparently trans people are no longer denying their biological sex. Or so we are told constantly, despite the evidence to the contrary.

I have found the constant assurance that trans people acknowledge their biological sex to be misguided at best, otherwise demonstrably false. In fact, laughably false considering the outpourings we saw around the census and the insistence of changes such as NHS numbers etc.

Anyway, how does this work with people who feel like they are a different gender every other day? Do their NHS numbers change along with it? A persons medical history is their history, why wipe it out? Isn't this discrimination? And what about non-binary patients? Do they get a special marker?

It's so ill 'thought' out. I wonder which individuals and groups are influencing these NHS decisions 😕.

I totally support people choosing their gender if that's what makes them happy but that's all it is gender, not sex.

It would be great if people who identify as trans gender could be proud of their choice and rather than pretending to be actually the opposite sex promote that it's ok living as the gender they identify with while acknowledging their biological sex, that's got to be more inclusive and empowering in my view. Be who you are and be free to express your identity and personality as you see fit. Biology is real and can be scientifically observed (not 'assigned' 😂). Doesn't the NHS give evidence-based care any longer?

This was related to one of the questions put to that Irish Senator last week by the Equalities Committee looking at the GRR Bill in Scotland. She was given some tale of “Oh, we’ve been told about concerns around change of NHS records and trans people missing out on sex based checks, but that’s not true it’s it because it all works tickety boo in Ireland.”

Only to have Regina Doherty turn around and say, “Oh we never though of that. Yes, I can see that there’s a problem there. Learn from our mistakes!”

The changing of NHS number and not having a way to tie it to the old records is madness. Am very glad to see this research will now be possible and yes, TRAs if you are so convinced problems are so minute, you’ll welcome this with open arms as a means to vindicate your position.

So when someone changes their sex with the NHS to their gender identity they will be issued a new NHS number which will then have a false sex marking number

Why the everliving fuck would people be allowed to falsify this fundamental data in the first place? If there's one place you do not want incorrect sex data it's somewhere like that.

I can only assume that as Helen Joyce has said, this seems to have been conceived as a sort of "witness protection programme". I really don't see how this level of paranoia about being "outed" is justified.

The new health care record must not 'reveal' trans status .... because ....IDK.

I was wondering - and maybe you know - is this record tampering compulsory? Can the patient request that the records not be screwed with?

Is it one of those things like TullipR(?) talked about - maybe you're pressured into it? If you're not going to do the record change, you're not serious about treatment?

@Impossiblenurse

This is what Javid meant by ‘bordering on the ideological’. A transitioned or transitioning human isn’t a new person. They are the same entity - their genes, organs, psyche - as they were before the medical treatments that society allowed to be performed on them. Those treatments - or indeed the absence of those treatments - have consequences. Refusing to track those consequences is bad medicine, it’s as a simple as that.

The changing of the NHS ID sex marker is shocking and incredibly irresponsible.

Maybe there should be new 'sex' /'gender' markers but it is factually incorrect to give trans people markers of the opposite sex.

I actually cannot wrap my head around this. It's a lie and I am deeply disturbed to read that the National Health Service, which is funded by tax payers and the public (and lines the pockets of American private companies) would manage healthcare based on an ideology that has been aggressively pushed.

I find this very sinister.

Long timeFWR lurker rarely post due to RCN NMC and NHS view in this area. So there is a risk to my career.

In my experience often long before an adult has had (even their first appt) with GI services, they have changed their health care records. The aim is for the new health care record to be indistinguishable from another record of the adopted sex class.

By doing so there is an erasure of the previous record. The new health care record must not 'reveal' trans status .... because ....IDK.

I have met UK adults (who I would expect to have comprehensive healthcare record) giving a verbal account of their complex diagnosis/treatment history and I had no access to data re previous episodes of care - because that person (original patient) no longer 'exists'. This troubles me on so many levels.

I don't work in primary care but understand that GP requesting new healthcare record/NHS number, (if aware) can link new record to the old (or share some data from one to the other) but the patient must consent to this...hence risk of invite to cervical screening when you have a prostate.

Probably the point tbh. Its incredibly suspicious how much of the affirming " care" is designed to make sure you cabt follow up or check anyone amd eliminates the calls fir screening for sex based illnesses. Then they can blame the nhs or poor GPS when the patient gets sick.or dies not themselves for obscuring reality and causing the issue

‘Who convinced people that either following through on treatment to ensure that it was successful or not having a system to connect two NHS numbers to ensure continuity of data was a good thing for any group of people?’

The problem (and this has always been one of the problems with oversight of new fields of medicine) is that becoming an expert in gender ‘medicine’ is a self-selecting process. You are both the motivated party and the expert. So people who should know better, and view outcomes objectively, listen to people with the most reason to distort the facts. Only once the ‘medicine’ becomes more mainstream does it become subject to more usual checks and balances.

Yes, this is what I was getting at.

In addition to this how can the right medical attention be given when these individuals present to their GP or worse in a life threatening condition to emergency services.