GIDS being sued by their safeguarding lead.

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

(Text from their crowdfunder)

My Details

My name is Sonia Appleby. I am a qualified social worker (1981); adult psychoanalytic psychotherapist (I992); MSc. in health psychology, (research) and MBA. I have a long career safeguarding and protecting children in social care, health and as a children’s guardian in public and private proceedings.

I am currently the Named Professional for Safeguarding Children and the Safeguarding Children Lead at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. I am therefore still employed by the Trust against which I am bringing my claim.

What is Safeguarding?

In all NHS trusts and organisations there are professionals such as myself, who work with other internal departments and external agencies to ensure there are 'root and branch' systems to keep patients and service users safe. This means responding to patient/service users' personal experiences, also including their environmental, familial, community/peer circumstances and sometimes any of the aforementioned domains could require the intervention of other professionals in different agencies. Safeguarding children and young people also concerns ensuring there is a sufficiently, healthy culture that does not unwittingly contribute to potential harm regarding the people who use and deliver NHS services.

Safeguarding within the Trust

My primary task is to ensure that clinicians protect their patients/service users from avoidable harm and are also able to recognize and appropriately respond to situations where under 18s are in need of safeguarding. My secondary task is challenge practices which are either harmful or could lead to harm. The Trust is commissioned by NHS England to deliver a National Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), which provides services for children and adolescents diagnosed with gender dysphoria. The treatments available also include "puberty blockers".

I have sought to ensure the principle of ''safeguarding children and young people'' is upheld whilst service users are being assessed and treated within the GIDS service.

My Claim

I lodged a whistle-blowing claim in November 2019 at the Central London Employment Tribunal. Since then I have made 2 applications to amend my claim as new information came to light.

In my claim, I allege that because I made "protected disclosures" to my line manager regarding concerns raised by GIDS staff ( that the health or safety of patients was being, had been or was likely to be endangered), I was subjected to detriments.

I allege these detriments are:

i) the Tavistock misused it's own procedures to besmirch me and therefore jeopardize the role of safeguarding within the Trust;

ii) there was an unwritten but mandated directive from the Tavistock management that safeguarding concerns should not be brought to my attention despite being the Trust Safeguarding Children Lead;

iii) and, clinicians were discouraged from reporting safeguarding concerns to me.

I also allege various other detriments.

Further to disclosures made to Newsnight by former staff, BBC Newsnight produced a programme focusing on the allegation that the Trust did not want to report any concerns to me. www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51806962

and you can watch it here

When you think about it, stripping out or undermining safeguarding structures is really the only explanation for why an NHS service could be operating in the way GIDS has been reported to. Yet another depressing example of safeguarding seemingly disintegrating as soon as trans children are part of the picture.

Indeed.

Pledged, let's get this out into the open.

Surely the TRAs can't object to that as there is apparently nothing untoward going on, right?

Surely the TRAs can't object to that as there is apparently nothing untoward going on, right?

Now you say that... but experience says otherwise 😂

@Pertella

Pledged, let's get this out into the open.

Surely the TRAs can't object to that as there is apparently nothing untoward going on, right?

This is what the concerns are:

www.bbc.com/news/health-51806962

The Tavistock - like other NHS organisations - has a named person clinicians can turn to discuss specific safety concerns.

But staff allege they were discouraged by GIDS Director Polly Carmichael from going to see the Trust's safeguarding lead, and from referring cases to social services.

According to the transcripts, these included cases where staff feared a child had suffered sexual abuse or trauma.
"In all of my previous work, if you had a concern, you refer them on," it's claimed. "And that did not happen."

Anyone who objects to the fact that children suffering from sexual abuse or trauma weren’t referred to the appropriate service needs to be very heavily scrutinised.

Yet another depressing example of safeguarding seemingly disintegrating as soon as trans children are part of the picture.

What do GIDS think a 'trans child' is? Do they believe that it's possible to be literally 'born in the wrong body'?

It is dreadful that these actions are having to be crowdfunded but I do find it heartening to watch the sums pledged go up and up. I don’t feel alone.

My other pleasure is watching JKR’s Twitter - not only does she own them but so many people are coming out and supporting her. I’m feeling more hopeful now.

Anyone who cares about children in the care of GIDS should be supportive of them getting the best standard of care possible.

Thinking, I made another pledge to Raquel's fund in honour of your deletion.

I have quite a few friends and acquaintances that have trained in psychotherapy at the Tavistock.

It has always been regarded as a centre of innovation and professional excellence.

How on earth has something as fundamental as safeguarding children been allowed to be so systematically undermined? In addition to the many clinicians who have resigned, many of whom are speaking publicly about their concerns about children not being properly assessed etc.

How on earth has this happened at the Tavistock? It is truly shocking.

I know that Stonewall has huge institutional capture, but how can one organisation have influenced NHS policy and practice to such an extent?

What do people think?

TIA. I'm really shocked about this.

I know that Stonewall has huge institutional capture, but how can one organisation have influenced NHS policy and practice to such an extent

Lisa muggeridge talks about this in one of her YouTube videos.

About how we know that predators will get themselves into jobs where they can access or assist in accessing their victims.

About how all it takes is a few well placed people.

And how these people make themselves beyond reproach. They will be the sweetiest , most honest, kindest people you will ever meet. Everyone will love them. They will perhaps do lots of charity work. Volunteer for local schemes that help children etc .

They will be the last person you would ever suspect of being a predator. How can you accuse someone who donates their spare time and money to charity. Who has immersed themselves in aiming to fight for people who can't fight for themselves.

Lgbt stuff provides that. And when you have a long standing trustworthy hardworking person who every one loves then who would question the suggestions/policies they come up with.

Especially when the majority of people aren't predators so would not be looking at the policies in the sense of what it would allow them to do.

Christina

I think one of the issues regards capture of the Tavistock is that its Chair is Paul Burstow who is a former Lib Dem MP and I assume still has close party links

the Lib Dems nailed their colours to the mast very clearly with the TRA and Ive no doubt he's heavily influenced by this

It has always been regarded as a centre of innovation

Perhaps this is part of the problem? Innovation in medicine is going to be tricky, isn't it?

There will be a balance between risk/benefit and safety with any new treatment - if a service is being lauded for its 'innovative' approach, perhaps it suggests the 'safety' approach is being subtly denigrated, and thus the usual safeguards are tending to be disregarded. Drugs being used off-label, and using new and still-developing theories as a basis for treatment sound like relatively risky approaches in terms of treatment.

Has the service been somehow encouraged towards the riskier pathway and away from the safer pathway? Have they been pressurised into taking more risks and for some reason into avoiding the diligence and safeguarding that should be fundamental to any HCP?

There also seems to be a lot of linkage with people. For instance the head if the ehrc is someone who worked for stonewall.

AC started off in the greens and ended up with the lib dems. AC Also worked fir stonewall and GI I believe and then was involved in an lgbt club called prism.

The same few people have their fingers im all the pies

Only £45 from their target now .

And some how they always seem to have more than one protected characteristic too.
Age
Race
Disability etc

So its also very hard to question someone is is not only potentially speaking from multiple places of discrimination but they are given the benefit of the doubt because no one wants to be seen as racist/homophobic/disablist.

Which is kinda discriminatory in itself as people who are black/gay/autistic etc are not only perfectly able to act within the confines of the law and do not need to be allowed to flout safe guarding or act inappropriately in order to participate in life . But instead holding them to these pretty average standards is seen as discriminatory instead.

Its bizarre.

There's also the existential question - if all or most gender-questioning young people are given a watch-and-wait diagnosis, eventually someone will ask whether there is a need for this clinic at all.

So the picture painted is of a very valuable service; albeit one that is being overrun by demand.

Demand coming from the 'success' other organisations have had in encouraging more and more kids to go straight to asking for puberty blockers...

Xanthangum I would strongly argue that there is absolutely a need for GIDS clinics, just not in the current format. If you listen to detransitioners, so many say that they wish they’d had better therapy to understand themselves or get into underlying issues or help manage their gender dysphoria and all of that is completely and utterly lacking in the current system which primarily focuses on assessing suitability for the medical path.

I’d possibly argue that this would put even more demand on their service because it would be far more time consuming and parents like me who won’t touch GIDS with a barge pole would want to use their service!

Unfortunately, such an attitude is currently considered “transphobic” by many.

Thanks all.

SarahTancredi is AC Amiee Chancellor? Sorry, I don't know what EHRC stands for. Has AC had links to GIDs?

rodgdmum yes that's what's bemuses me. I used to work in mental health and interventions for people with bodily dysphoria or dysmorphia were always psychological. It's beyond comprehension how this aspect of the service has been neglected, possibly wilfully it would seem.

Agreed @rogdmum. I'm not suggesting there's no need, just the current business model is flawed.

She has met her £10k target by the way.

I don't know if Ainee challenor has been involved with GIDs but they were involved with the Lib Dems which a poster above mentioned in regards to the chair of the Tavistock. Can't comment on time line however.

But the guidance that stonewall and mermaids etc ( allsorts guidence) has not been pulled as far as I know evev though AC was ( still may be who knows, some remain unlisted ) a member of the trans advisory board for stonewall.

There is an 80 page verita investigation document that declares AC as incompetent wrt safeguarding.

Pretty sure AC also advised Girl Guiding on their trans policy. Which, predictably, is "let transwomen and transgirls do what they want, and for god's sake no one tell the parents".

Yes and there was Also neither a confirmation or denial from JF as to whether they had anything to do with the advise too.

I emailed gg about the outcome of the verita investigation and asked if they were aware and planned to review their guidance. After 2 or three Emails where they refused to acknowledge any of the issues I raised they then told me they would no longer discuss it with me.

Thanks SarahTancredi, that's really kind of you to explain all that.

James Kirkuk writing in The Spectator today on this issue and Sonia Appleby’s case, and essentially asking - what is it going to take for an inquiry to actually happen here?
www.spectator.co.uk/article/Are-whistleblowers-being-silenced-at-the-NHS-gender-clinic

Kirkup, thanks phone.