Part 2
AH: Yes, this is a case that is going to be looking at the issue of consent, but my understanding of what lawyers are going to argue is they will say they want more checks and balances under the age of 16, so it might be that there are more hoops that people have to jump through, so I don’t think it’s a blanket no one will ever or, no one would ever get, er, puberty blockers, for instance, under the age of 16. It’s more that there needs to be much more discussion and understanding of, erm the process and, and also the research behind this because erm it’s, it’s interesting looking at the numbers it, I , from the research I’ve looked at it’s quite difficult to understand the level of regret that people may find.
JV: You think it’s more than 1 %?
AH: I don’t know, I don’t know. But I would say is that It is clearly rare because people have to go through a lot of hoops, erm, but the research in this area shall we say, is ongoing, I believe.
JV: I, I, erm Susie from your description it sounds like there is an enormous amount of thought and counsel and, and so on that goes into anything happening physically and I just wonder how much more you can do?
SG: Exactly, and the fact is that young people aren’t even managing to get past waiting lists for at least two years, so after two years of sitting on a waiting list they then have, generally it’s a minimum of a year of counselling, talking, working through this before any medical intervention is considered. I don’t see how you could put much more in their way in terms of hoops, talking to those families and talking to those young people, you know, the distress that I hear every day from those kids that are sat on that waiting list, who have access to no support whatsoever while they wait for something whilst they are massively distressed and just suffering so badly, and then to have this cropping up, which essentially to them means that, you know, their options in terms of their, their future access are getting further away, and you’ve got to remember as well that anybody under 16 it has to be with parental consent so this is not something that’s being decided by a 14 year old with no, erm, back up or consent, this is a, this is a conversation that happens with young people and their families and their clinicians over a period of time.