Reuters leak info on NHS England’s plans for new paediatric gender service

[TheClogLady]

www.reuters.com/world/uk/exclusive-nhs-drafts-stricter-oversight-trans-youth-care-2022-10-14/

Extract:

In England, a years-long wait for gender care has led some young people to seek medications through unregulated online pharmacies, or privately. These include therapies that block the onset of puberty or hormone treatments for older people, which are used to help transgender adolescents develop secondary sexual characteristics aligned with their gender identity. GenderGP, a private provider of treatments for transgender patients, told Reuters it has prescribed such medications to hundreds of youth.

The draft guideline says that if NHS professionals decide a patient should not be taking puberty blockers or hormone treatments obtained privately, they can advise the patient's primary care doctor to initiate "safeguarding protocols."
The draft does not spell out why safeguarding measures would be taken or what that would entail. But under NHS protocols, "safeguarding teams" are made up of representatives of the police, medical and social services professionals who are responsible for ensuring a child's safety and well-being.

Archive: web.archive.org/web/20221014150656/www.reuters.com/world/uk/exclusive-nhs-drafts-stricter-oversight-trans-youth-care-2022-10-14/

Guardian story on the above, archive: web.archive.org/web/20221014171554/www.theguardian.com/society/2022/oct/14/young-trans-people-accessing-treatment-outside-nhs-may-get-safeguarding-

Urgh, Guardian archive linky-no-worky.

Here’s the live one:

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/oct/14/young-trans-people-accessing-treatment-outside-nhs-may-get-safeguarding-referral

new archive link for the Guardian: archive.ph/j7Ecl

"The NHS has previously said it "strongly discouraged" people from sourcing gender-affirming medications online from providers that are not regulated within the UK.

"No-one should be purchasing illegal, unknown and potentially life-threatening drugs online," said NHS England medical director Dr Stephen Powis in a statement earlier this week."

Well of course children need safety protocols! Protection from GenderGP for a start!

This looks to be a positive start. Given the appalling revelations about the individuals, behaviour and lack of safeguarding at a children's charity where the adults seek to discuss with a child their body, sexual identity, potential surgery and drug use with not an iota of expertise between the lot of them, it's a relief to see a potential clinically led service with comprehensive safeguarding embedded.

It also suggests that time's up for the queer theorists and dodgy activists so determined to persuade children that their perfect bodies need changing and that their families need abandoning.

Which reminds me, I archived Gender GP’s ‘safeguarding policy’ recently.

www.gendergp.com/safeguarding/

Archive: archive.ph/GgHTY

It’s laughable (or it would be if the subject matter, disrupting the healthy endocrine systems of still-growing minors, was in any way humorous)

I genuinely know tattoo/body piercing places with more stringent policies!

It leads here: www.gmc-uk.org/ethical-guidance/ethical-guidance-for-doctors/confidentiality

Which is pretty much just about patient confidentiality and data handling, absolutely nothing specified re minors or vulnerable adults and no mention of designated safeguarding leads or reporting to line managers or reporting concerns to social services/police etc etc.

Compare and contrast:

Company 1: prescribing GnRHa medications for indefinite pubertal blockade (with no requirement for yearly bone density monitoring, unlike the NHS), plus irreversible cross sex hormones. No fixed lower age limit.

V

Company 2: Body piercing service plus sale of body safe jewellery. Age limits clearly defined.

Sounds promising that someone is finally waking up to the fact that vulnerable children are being harmed. I hope there is a robust inquiry into WHY they are self medicating and who is pushing the idea that they need to.

Loving that autumn sunlight on these shysters

One of the issues we’ve got with the likes of GenderGP is that it’s not actually that easy to come up with a good policy for blocking foreign prescriptions without catching out people with genuine need.

On another note, the public consultation on the interim service specification for the future of the children’s gender identity service model should be going live soon. It’s been delayed both by the publication pause during the Queen’s mourning period and some political back and forth but should be coming out soon.

From that Graun article. The last thing anyone wants is a rehash of GIDS. Quite:

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/oct/14/young-trans-people-accessing-treatment-outside-nhs-may-get-safeguarding-referral

"A spokesperson for Gendered Intelligence, a national transgender-led charity, said people using or hoping to use the service urgently needed more information about how it would be run.
“The last thing anyone wants to see is a rehash of the same problems currently faced by Gids: a system with so many administrative barriers and capacity issues that it became unsustainable,” the spokesperson said. “It is crucial that the new services focus on accessibility and communication; on actually facilitating access to treatment and support rather than leaving young people and their families in limbo.”"

Aah - the sadly misnamed Gendered Intelligence who have stopped working with Sport England because Sport England recognise that “Competitive fairness cannot be reconciled with self-identification"

It's long overdue for this organisation to be challenged about their lack of qualifications / expertise in child welfare, psychology, safeguarding or the health treatment of children. They need to be swiftly removed from having any influence on the health treatment of other people's children.

This causes a few problems.

First of all,.if the NHS decides they dont need hormones.

With the way waiting lists are these could be years, or.people may refuse referral and just go straight to the private providers.

Also this causes problems with the doctor- patient relationship.
Which patient is going to let on they are getting prescriptions privately if it would start safeguarding protocols?

They would just keep it hidden which is worse for the patient, because ideally their GP should needs to know if they are on any regular medication.

We are talking about children and young people here. So we should start from the premise that we do in all other situations where children and parents are involved surely?

It isn't ok to say, "well, the parents/children may lie and conceal that they are illegally sourcing and medicating with off licence drugs, so we shouldn't ask or try to protect the vulnerable kids in that situation"

Parents are/should already be aware that hcps are on the alert (should be) for signs of potential significant harm or neglect in families. In the same way that parents who subject their daughters to fgm or their sons to backstreet circumcisions, or families who embark on extreme exclusion diets etc run the risk of professionals sounding the alarm right now.

Yes, true, although already I see posts from young people on self-prescribed hormones worrying about what to tell the GP/gender clinic when they finally get referred.

TBH what really needs to happen is the myth of transition and the entire gender industry needs to be reined in and cut down to size.

What was a very highly specialised service for a tiny, tiny number of people has been repackaged and sold in schools as a casual lifestyle choice, not a medical condition, a happy, joyful rainbow 'chosen family' that offers empowerment, escape and excitement.

It is damaging children and young people. Confusing and beguiling young people trying to navigate a torrent of unscientific gishgalloping bullshit, promising them a ready-made identity, and a way of transsubstantiating emotional pain into medical procedures.

Which patient is going to let on they are getting prescriptions privately if it would start safeguarding protocols?

They would just keep it hidden which is worse for the patient, because ideally their GP should needs to know if they are on any regular medication

I do understand your concern but in the case of natal girls, T is a controlled substance and it would be negligent for HCP to not flag up a child who is using anabolic steroids, whether that be a natal boy trying to pump up in the gym or a natal girl wanting to take on a male appearance.

Prescribers should not be sending drugs (or the paperwork to obtain drugs) overseas knowing they cannot possibly provide proper monitoring and follow up care, including referrals for growth monitoring and bone density scans etc.

If a parent chooses to obtain a prescription for their minor child under these circumstances (ie knowing that adequate monitoring is not part of prescribers protocol) then they ARE putting their child in danger.

Gender is like every other specialism in that GPs only take on minimal duties and always under the supervision of a properly qualified consultant.

They can’t possibly be expected to pick up the slack from rogue overseas companies, especially not far beyond the point where the NHS would insist a specialist is the responsible party.

Adults seeking harm reduction blood tests is one thing, but paediatrics is completely different.

Anyway, the entire point of taking cross sex hormones is change your appearance, so it really can’t be kept secret from all adults with safeguarding responsibilities for long.

I’m not surprised that certain people want to feed drugs to kids while chatting to them about sex - that’s been happening since the dawn of time, and my generation had a name for it. But I am surprised that all of the basic safeguarding protocols collapsed to prioritise the feelings of adult men over the basic safety needs of vulnerable children.

There needs to be an inquiry into how the NHS (and police, and schools) were captured and controlled by political lobby groups for so long.

All that has unwound this has been the courts, the very last bastion of sanity. It should never have got to the last bastion.

All that has unwound this has been the courts, the very last bastion of sanity. It should never have got to the last bastion.

Quite right Greenight. It's worth remembering that trans lobby groups have worked very hard to capture the judiciary with judges being subjected to such secret "trans training" that the details must be hidden from the public. (Maya Forstater has been unable to get the details - presumably because there's something very dodgy about the content).

Despite all this pressure from self interested groups, most judges seem to have been able to retain their knowledge, ethics and application of the law as befits a democratic society.

There needs to be an inquiry into how the NHS (and police, and schools) were captured and controlled by political lobby groups for so long.

Yes. Whom would we ask to set up this inquiry?

Were there a child safeguarding centred, women's rights respecting opposition party, they could be asked to push for this - but given the current science denying / cervix knitting politicians that lead the party, there seems little point Arabella?

This potentially could also fall at the hands of school safeguarding; in that if teachers find out pupils are taking these drugs they may be duty bound to report?

I hope so.

(perhaps unsurprisingly) there is currently a bit of an issue with teens sharing the meds they get from gender gp or elsewhere online with their peers, as well as gender gp predcribing without parental knowledge, so lots of us with kids who self harm through the current day medium of a trans identity would be very pleased if teachers were obligated to escalate any worries around non-NHS prescribed meds.

I can see it being akin to how fgm is reported. Inform police.

The fucking nerve

How long before people have the guts to finally say:

Child safeguarding can not be reconciled with affirmation only treatment and hanging out with adult industry workers and entertainers, paedo apologists or those who plaster themselves naked on the Internet.