Request for HSC enquiry into Tavistock- response from chair

[Brighterf]

After the Times article a couple of weeks back detailing the concerns raised by clinicians about the Tavistock GIDS service, and the high number of resignations, I wrote to the Health and Social Care Committee asking that they consider running an enquiry into what is going on there. I had the following response yesterday:

The other enquiry mentioned was this one:

www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/women-and-equalities-committee/inquiries/parliament-2017/inquiry11/

It closed for submissions in October last year, but the letter, and the wording on the site both imply they would accept further submissions.

brilliant work, an enquiry is certainly needed

Aside from the Women's & Equalities, there may be other relevent committees.

Ive seen there's a Lords' Safeguarding group.
Claude Knights (formally of Kidscape) is involved.

That is a disgraceful reply from Sara Wollaston.

She's ducking and diving and trying to pass the buck to Maria Miller's lot when this is a subject for HER committee. It has nothing to do with equalities, it is to do with the NHS's treatment of children in an untested experiment.

This is about drugs, assessments, referrals, GPs, NHS services, whistleblowers and health outcomes for children. The people with the expertise to call for and analyse the evidence sit on Wollaston's Committee not Miller's.

I think it is irresponsible to dismiss the call for scrutiny of an NHS service just because you've got lots of better things to do. I think the public want the government to actually look as if they care - Sara Wollaston fails on that score.

It has nothing to do with equalities, it is to do with the NHS's treatment of children in an untested experiment.

This is about drugs, assessments, referrals, GPs, NHS services, whistleblowers and health outcomes for children. The people with the expertise to call for and analyse the evidence sit on Wollaston's Committee not Miller's.

YY
Ministers & committees who should be involved are Health, Medical ethics, Children's, Safeguarding etc.

Similarly those ministers & committees with responsibility for education, social care, charity commission etc have both primary responsibility & access to relevent expertise.

Maria Miller's Women & Equalities committee & Penny Mordant MP as Equalities Minister have demonstrated consistant failures to recognise the issues & have been dominated by TRA lobbyist demands. There is clear failure to understanding Safeguarding which seems systemic both within the department/committee & amongst TRA lobby groups.

Hmm, perhaps I'll summon up a reply to her then. Thanks.

Might be worth including Prof Carl Heneghan's BMJ paper.
He is head of Oxford's Evidence Based Medicine & his article & comments on Panorama in The Times followed this study:

BMJ EBM Spotlight paper:
'Gender-affirming hormone in children and adolescents – Evidence review'
Posted on 25th February 2019

(extract)
"Gender dysphoria occurs when a person experiences discomfort or distress because of a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity. Gender dysphoria can arise in childhood and adolescent which raises many questions about how best to handle the condition. This post sets out the current evidence for gender-affirming hormones in adolescents and children to aid decision making. (continues)

"Conclusions

There are significant problems with how the evidence for Gender-affirming cross-sex hormone has been collected and analysed that prevents definitive conclusions to be drawn. Similar to puberty blockers, the evidence is limited by small sample sizes; retrospective methods, loss of considerable numbers of patients in follow-up. The majority of studies also lack a control group (only two studies used controls). Interventions have heterogeneous treatment regimes complicating comparisons between studies. Also adherence to the interventions are either not reported or at best inconsistent. Subjective outcomes, which are highly prevalent in the studies, are also prone to bias due to lack of blinding, and many effects can be explained by regression to the mean.

The development of these interventions should, therefore, occur in the context of research. Treatments for under 18 gender dysphoric children and adolescents remain largely experimental. There are a large number of unanswered questions that include the age at start, reversibility; adverse events, long term effects on mental health, quality of life, bone mineral density, osteoporosis in later life and cognition. We wonder whether off label use is appropriate and justified for drugs such as spironolactone which can cause substantial harms, including death. We are also ignorant of the long-term safety profiles of the different GAH regimens. The current evidence base does not support informed decision making and safe practice."
blogs.bmj.com/bmjebmspotlight/2019/02/25/gender-affirming-hormone-in-children-and-adolescents-evidence-review/

Thank you for sharing this letter. Great to have made contact with them about this.

Hmm.. select committees do have existing work plans and they can’t drop everything right now to pick up new issues. But this seems like a really standard reply so I don’t think they get the urgency.. I’m worried that she doesn’t even say when the Health and Social Care committee may be next looking to take on these new enquiries.

I am going to write again asking them to look at it emphasising that this query isn’t about ensuring access to adult services is appropriate, which is what the equalities enquiry she points to is about.

The LGBT enquiry that the letter points to is not specific to children and seems to revolve around surveys on LBGT adults etc experiences of accessing health care. (The Manchester healthcare pilot and problems with that are relevant to the adult enquiry though.)

But the HSC committee under Sarah Wollaston should be looking at the specific urgent issues revealed and the whistleblowers in the profession concerned about the health and psychological care being offered to children and young people.

Their Twitter is @CommonsHealth

We also need to continue to write to raise awareness from any gender critical MPs that we can muster to get them to push for this.

I wonder if David TC Davies MP could highlight the issues raised by the Times article in Parliament, if he hasn’t already?

links to Heneghan’s and Bewley’s published medical journal stuff here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3565554-Is-the-Surgical-World-Ready-for-Adolescent-Gender-Surgery

Ok I think we need another concerted push on the MPs.

Would anyone like to work with me on an MP campaign? We will need to assemble a list of relevant ministers, departments, committees etc. Also draft something which gives people a broad template or checklist of what to include. I will start a new thread as well

Thanks Bodger just linking to your thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3570445-The-2019-MP-Campaign

Thread of quite frankly shocking posts from Stuart Lorimer, a gender clinician at the Tavistock.

twitter.com/Neverfallingfo1/status/1163383983369011200?s=19

Also may be of interest:

"the @TaviAndPort have a council meeting scheduled on the 12th sept. I intend to show up and raise my concerns . t.co/o7KTxDXjGC

according to their site:'Members of the public are welcome to attend Governors meetings' "

Thankyou SunsetBeetch
That thread is shocking.

A gender clinician saying those things in private is shocking, but on social media shows an astonishing lack of integrity.

Stuart Lorimer needs striking off. He is another Webberely

I saw that on twitter sunset really shocking

Thinking about money !!

Hi Badger I’ve written to Boris and Amber Rudd recently - no reply yet - and am writing soon to my MP for a second time. They are clearly gearing up for an election so this is a good time to let them know what we don’t want as they formulate policies.

Fucking hell, he's just admitted that it's a complete gravy train and he's on it pulling the bloody whistle.

And if ROGD doesn't exist, how come 75% of kids showing up at clinics are female? What's the reason?

And the other man? I'll 'tear it a new arsehole'??

They sound like drunk frat boys, not doctors. Ugh.

Don't they just.

Teenage girls are their cash cow. Of course they don't believe in ROGD. Or women's rights.

Lorimer sounds remarkably like the Fish Dealer too.