The Welsh Gender Service (WGS): a "potential Service of Concern"

PC are committed ideologs, the FM is no doubt under pressure from his own nutters to make grandstanding statements. Let's hope the health trust ignores him and all the gender harpies in his party and do a proper investigation.

David Deans

Health minister Mabon ap Gwynfor spoke for the first time on the surgery crisis impacting the Welsh Gender Service on Radio Wales Breakfast this morning. He said the trans community would see it as a "hammerblow". The minister said he was told there was a "spike" in the data.
He says he will meet the committee involved tomorrow. "I've asked to see that data myself", ap Gwynfor said.

I've been in meetings with Health Professionals, who have stats that show one thing and then someone from the WAG shows up and the stats get turned around and show something different.
I hope the Tory's are keeping a close eye 👀 on these muppets to make sure the stats don't magically change after this meeting. 😤

Stap me, this is a reasonable headline from the Beeb.

Photo for "balance", I suppose.

"Transgender surgery halted over concerns patients were not properly assessed"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8x2jglljpo

The fix maybe in. Please do your best to draw attention to this scandal.

Ben Sears
Another update from the WGS 👇 It seems they will be marking their own homework: 'Experienced gender specialists' following WPATH standards of care ARE the problem. The NWJCC need to independently review whether strong clinical evidence is underpinning the service. If they do, they will see it is not.
https://x.com/BJ_Sears/status/2096110961526558972

Nick Wallis

"Cardiff and Vale University Health Board remains committed to providing high-quality, evidence-based and person-centred gender affirming care."

If you affirm every patient, you end up with precisely the problems the Welsh Gender Service is facing.
Welsh Gender Service update – 3 September 2026
https://cavuhb.nhs.wales/news/latest-news/welsh-gender-service-update-3-september-2026/

It beggars belief they would make this statement when there is a concern they may have affirmed too many people.

"...person-centred gender affirming care."

That's the core of the problem isn't it, they're just giving whatever the 'person' demands, that's not what clinicians are supposed to do, there's nothing evidenced based about it this clinic.

Wallis latest blog post is a must read:

WGS surgery referral free-for-all
https://genderblog.net/wgs-surgery-referral-free-for-all/

Wallis latest blog post is a must read

It really is. The people responsible for this truly awful “care” need serious investigation.

Getting more reporting.

https://pembrokeshire-herald.com/147987/nhs-details-clinical-concerns-behind-welsh-gender-surgery-pause/

The TAs have got a petition together.

Petition calling for gender-affirming surgery pause to be lifted passes 10,000 signatures

First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth has said the review should be completed quickly.

Twenty-six of Plaid Cymru’s 28 backbench Senedd members have also written to NWJCC chairman Ian Green expressing “profound disappointment” at the decision, saying it had caused “distress, fear and a deep sense of uncertainty” among the trans community.

Reform UK and the Welsh Conservatives have backed the pause.

Reform’s Welsh leader Dan Thomas said “sensible-minded people in Wales” would welcome the suspension, while Welsh Conservative health spokeswoman Natasha Asghar said it was “imperative” to establish why a higher proportion of patients in Wales had been referred for surgery, and whether assessment processes and safeguards were sufficiently robust.

https://nation.cymru/news/petition-calling-for-gender-affirming-surgery-pause-to-be-lifted-passes-10000-signatures/

Pretty clear that Plaid wants to continue without real checks.

I don't know if it would be useful to start a counter petition or how we would word it.

Meanwhile this petition has way less

Fund more care & support for women’s gynaecological & reproductive health
1,801 signatures

Thanks for the update, I think it would be counterproductive to start a petition in support of the stopage, the silent majority might be in support of an investigation but the problem is they're silent, including not going to sign a petition.
The other side are activists, so they're more than willing to sign a petition, it presents a lop sided view and they'll happily use the low number of signatures on a petition that supports the pause as a justification of their views.

It's a pointless petition, directed at the wrong organisation. Like a lot of the lobbying on this issue in Wales it's all about grandstanding and virtue-signaling. It's like they've all gone a bit bonkers.

Anyone who genuinely cares about a group of people as vulnerable as they claim to be would want them to get the most appropriate, safest, evidence-based care and psychological support. No other group of patients would be allowed to get anywhere near deciding on what the treatment pathway and service model should be in a publicly-funded health service. And if there was any hint of there being clinical concerns, the same politicians would be horrified if surgery and other irreversible treatments continued unabated without rigorous investigation and review.

Latest from Nick Wallis important

NHS Wales to review “paused” surgeries by Christmas
The independent clinical review panel has been appointed, and, subject to “final governance approval”, will begin its work on Tuesday. The Chief Commissioner is “confident” all sixty people who have had their surgeries postponed can be reviewed before the end of December.

In newly-published information for 2025/26, it appears WGS was referring people at a rate “varying between approximately three and five times higher per head of population”, when compared to English gender clinics. See table below:
https://genderblog.net/nhs-wales-to-review-paused-surgeries-by-christmas/

Thanks for the update. I feel quite sick to my stomach when I read about this, it's so very, very wrong, and I'm afraid this investigation will just end up concluding some mealy mouth 'lessons have been learnt' and now back to the butchery.

"The Chief Commissioner also states that NHS Wales had received concerns about WGS from clinicians in NHS England who raised queries about the “appropriateness of referrals and clinical suitability. Such concerns have been echoed in complaints and correspondence received from members of the public.”

But did NHS England still go ahead with the surgeries even though there were 'concerns'?

But did NHS England still go ahead with the surgeries even though there were 'concerns'?

Nick's previous article says that:

"a significantly lower proportion of Welsh patients were progressing to surgery compared with patients referred from English gender services.
This is an obvious red flag. "

So it looks like those surgeries didn't go ahead. Nice to see that even gender surgeons draw the line somewhere.🙄

https://genderblog.net/wgs-surgery-referral-free-for-all/

Reading the article, it looks as though there may be two different issues.

One has nothing to do with the desirability or otherwise of the surgical procedure, but is about whether the patient is surgery-ready in terms of their overall health. Things like obesity, smoking etc. It sounds as though the Welsh service has been referring people whom the English service don't feel are fit to proceed on grounds of that sort.

The other issue is whether there has been adequate exploration of why the patient wants the surgery, and of possible less drastic alternatives. It is not clear to me from the article whether the English service has been querying referrals on that basis too, or not.

Yes, I agree. There are two separate issues, and it is unclear if the 'inadequate exploration' issue has been flagged as a concern.

I think that the term 'unmanaged health conditions' is possibly of interest. It could simply be controlling the patient's health condition (eg diabetes) before referral for surgery. However, it could also include addressing co-morbidities, such as ADHD, PTSD, depression, anxiety, which have the potential to relieve the 'gender dysphoria' to an extent that surgery would be unnecessary.