NHS Policy Audit - working party - thread #2

[KnottyAuty]

This is a thread about “keeping the receipts” on NHS Policies prior to the Supreme Court ruling on 16th April 2025.

Our working theory is that there were no single sex spaces for NHS Staff or Patients in the entire country before that date, having all been removed by stealth. We are aiming to prove this by auditing websites and policies for all the UK trusts and using the results to raise public awareness. As well as recording what has happened historically, the information will form a baseline so we can check which Trusts comply or defy the judgement in due course.

We are working around the country region by region. If you fancy getting involved in a bit of grassroots feminism then please do join in to help!? Each trust takes about an hour to research and you can upload online without giving any personal details away. Comment below and we can give you the link to an online survey - it changes for each region.

Thanks soooo much to all the vipers who have helped so far and @ Twoloons for doing a great job with the thread wrangling!

Here are the press articles we’ve managed to generate so far:

Scotland:
25th March: The Telegraph
https://archive.is/dTUhY
26th March: Scottish Daily Express
https://archive.is/kaLCB
26th March: The Telegraph
https://archive.is/iSD9m

London:
21st April: The Telegraph
https://archive.is/awGuz
23rd April: The Telegraph (in conjunction with another thread by NHS mumsnetters)
https://archive.is/1DO8d

Original thread #1 here:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5291237-nhs-policy-audit-working-party?page=1

How many young people in general think of suicide or self harm? I bet there are quite a number. Without knowing this it's impossible to say whether the trans population is more or less affected. Personally I suspect not.
If so, what would be the breakdown between male and female.

I had a quick look when I was doing the audit for this Trust but couldn't find anything from a quick Google. I will do some more systematic searching. It is clearly bollocks whatever it's origin as the suicide stats have been well and truly debunked.

Interestingly, the studies I quoted upthread and this stat were not included in the reference section of this particular policy - I wonder why?

Anyway I will spend a little time on it and report back if I find anything

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust also states in it's TRANS (TRANSGENDER) ADVICE AND SUPPORT POLICY FOR SERVICE USERS
"7.3 Trans patients are entitled to full legal recognition in their acquired gender and must be treated as such. Failure to do so will be in breach of the criminal law."

Which I assume is wishful thinking. It is worth noting that at least until 2022 they were fully paid up members of the Stonewall Diversity Champions programme and reference Stonewall a lot in its further reading resources across its policies. Perhaps some key points have got lost in translation?

Afternoon @KnottyAuty and @TwoLoonsAndASprout . Just a couple of small bits of info for you.
PHE was abolished in 2022 I think its wider public health role was absorbed into DHSC.
I have made a start on one of my trusts this afternoon only to find it is not actually an NHS trust. Central Surrey Health is a social enterprise under contract to the the NHS. It seems to be a mirror service to the community health NHS trusts. I am not sure if we have come across this before - it might make a difference to the analysis. Looking more closely at the list of trusts for the SE it looks as if there are 3 of these. I will do a bit more digging on this if that is useful?
We are making progress on the SE I will post an updated list probably tomorrow, as my elderly washing machine has finally bitten the dust so my priority this evening will be ordering a new one hopefully for installation before the weekend.

Thank you @FarriersGirl! That does sound interesting. If you have the time and energy to do a bit of a dig, that would be fantastic - would be good to know what they are all about if there are a few of them that are the same.

Very sorry to hear about your washing machine - that’s a pain in the backside! But many thanks for the list wrangling - so, so helpful!

completely off the subject but pertinent to the last couple of posts - I have had good service from ao.com for white goods

I'm pretty confident that there was never a PHE report / study showing a 90% suicide ideation rate - no trace of it now on Gov.UK if there was.

Transgender Trend's suicide facts and myths is a great resource for breaking down some of the data and claims.

I've tried to post links to the main research findings of the right time period. A range of different numbers but none anywhere near as high as 90% but Mumsnet doesn't like.

That figure sounds like either someone got the wrong end of the stick somewhere or just pulled a figure out of their arse.

I've submitted East Sussex Healthcare

There was a staff transitioning policy but unable to find.

In patient policy:
Trans women (who have undergone gender reassignment surgery) can be
catheterised as with other women, although do bear in mind that the
physiological markers may be less evident than in other women.
Trans men (who have undergone gender reassignment surgery) will need to
be catheterised based on their genital presentation. Trans men with a
phalloplasty can be catheterised.

Admission to single sex wards - The ‘Single / mixed Sex Policy’ applies at all times without exception and therefore [trans people] should be admitted to a ward in accordance with their presenting gender...

The EDI Lead has a long history of public sector EDI work including at DH 2007-8.

The Trust's maternity page:
We are proud to be recognised as gold standard for excellence in lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans healthcare, improving the experience of LGBTQ+ people accessing our services. See LGBT Foundation for details.
There are links to NHS England guidance and also Bourne This Way - a Sussex-based LGBTQ+ Parent Support Group. Holds events including live music, kids entertainment and lots more fun for the whole family. And camping...

I’ve found some references to suicide statistics in various Dept of Health publications from around 2008. Some of them, from memory, looked very high. I think some of them were from a paper by Whittle et al - will dig it all out when I get a moment.

This is the Whittle one 34.4% http://www.pfc.org.uk/pdf/EngenderedPenalties.pdf

I found a ton of links but couldn't share on here - hopefully this one will work. None higher than around the 50% mark - nowhere near 90% anyway

Please allocate me another x

There are links to NHS England guidance and also Bourne This Way - a Sussex-based LGBTQ+ Parent Support Group. Holds events including live music, kids entertainment and lots more fun for the whole family. And camping...

This is the sort of thing that worries me. Conveyor belt for children from NHS to activists

East Kent submitted. I have a lot of prep for a meeting next week so will try to pick up another in 7 days or so when that is all done and dusted.

Next one for you Medway NHS Foundation Trust

Thanks for that link, I had seen the reference in the initial Equality Impact Assessment for ‘Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS’. The list of evidence is on my (long!) list of things I should go through and find the documents and read them. It’s also referred to in the Trans Research Review by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The other place I’ve seen suicide mentioned is ‘A guide to trans services user’ rights’ by GIRES. There’s a footnote that argues that trans people are at higher risk of suicide based on a 2008 report by Spectrum, as well as mentioning the Whittle paper. The footnote says “Those who identify as trans were twice as likely to have serious thoughts of suicide, more than three times as likely to have attempted suicide in the past five years and over five times as likely to have attempted suicide in the past twelve months, than non-trans people.” Browne, K. Lim, J (2008) Count me in too - additional findings report: mental health, Spectrum, available at www countmeintoo co uk’.

There’s clearly an argument made in these documents about the high rates of suicidal thoughts / attempts and suicides among trans people that became part of the later narrative about the pressing need for transition. I don’t have time to track it all down and I could be wrong, but it is somewhat reminding me of the diagram in the Cass review which showed how all the ‘evidence’ came back to WPATH and was all founded on one (as it turned out, shaky) foundation.

I don't have capacity to look into this, but for those on these statistics I'd suggest you find some comparators with the autism community.

The poor functioning (disability/poor mental health/anxiety/not leaving the house/not getting a job/no qualifications/school placement breakdown etc) and suicide figures are big problems for this group. Anxiety doesn't feature in the diagnostic criteria but it seems to affect all autists.

My working theory is that many of these negative outcomes quoted by the trans community are autism related, rather than specifically trans.

And if that is so, then there is absolutely no "treatment" available for autism other than changing the environment to make it more accessible... another reason why trans medicalisation seems even more inappropriate.

Just quickly adding (as I need to go out), there has been quite a lot of analysis of the various suicide claims. Off the top of my head (so may not be quite right):

• Transgender Trend did an analysis of the 48% figure which I think originated with Stonewall. Flawed due to methodological and statistical analysis weaknesses- and I think they also looked at other reports too
• There is a Swedish study (I found it yesterday) dating back a bit which found higher suicide rates in transitioned people vs non trans, non transitioned - which suggests transitioning is not the solution for higher suicide rates in the transgender cohort
• The wider lens also did an episode pulling apart studies and claims
• There is a recent Finish study looking at young people that found that transgender young people did not have a higher rate of suicidality than other young people with the same co-morbidities
• There is the Louis Appleby report produced in response to irresponsible fearmongering from the Good Law Project after the NHS banned puberty blockers which shows there was no increase in suicidality amongst GIDS patients / waiting lists as a result of the puberty blocker ban

I can dig out and share all these if anyone wants them - I will definitely have got some of the details wrong but the above shows that there is a lot of analysis that has already been done by others. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. And the claims are bogus (or at least the conclusions drawn from the data are bogus).

Good morning lovely vipers!

I'm just popping on here to say that @KnottyAuty and I have just had a really productive meeting with an outside group, and we can now say that we have a potential host for all your amazing work, along with support for getting the message out. We're not going to name them just yet, but they are a reputable and well-known group campaigning in this area -- and they have specifically said "Well done and thank you" to all of you for the amazing work that you are doing!

And now I'm going to add a roll call of everyone who has been involved (hope I have caught everyone!), because there are a whole bunch of us now and I think we all deserve a round of applause:

@ArabellaScott, @Bannedontherun, @BeLemonHam, @Blackmetallic, @Bunpea, @Cantunseeit, @CarefulN0w, @Chrysanthemum5, @ExDerryGirl, @Faffertea, @FarriersGirl, @GreenAllOver, @Harassedevictee, @Iheartmysmart, @MadameBethune, @mrshoho, @NeedMoreTinfoil, @nothingcomestonothing, @oviraptor21, @Rightsraptor, @Rosebud21, @SeaStoat, @selffellatingouroborosofhate, @ShockedandStunnedRepeatedly, @Shortshriftandlethal, @socialdilemmawhattodo, @SqueakyDinosaur, @SternlyMatthews, @teawamutu, @ThatPithySheep, @Theeyeballsinthesky, @thenoisiesttermagant, @Towanda12, @umbel, @WithSilverBells, @YellowRoom

Exciting news and thank you for the mention. X

Thanks all the auditors who have helped so far - you efforts are making a difference 👏👏👏

@TwoLoonsAndASprout @KnottyAuty Thank you, I hardly did anything. So many of you have worked so hard to gather all this valuable information so a big thank you from me.

A very big thank you, to you both for leading this and getting the exposure.

Exciting news, great leadership @KnottyAuty and @TwoLoonsAndASprout it's a privilege to be part of this group. I hope the work makes a real difference, the two of you have certainly been v effective in converting the auditing into media coverage.

Great to have a host for the data to give access to wider audiences in future and hold this shitshow up to the light.

Today I received a response from Mersey Care NHS foundation Trust, which covers the big Liverpool teaching hospitals:

Request and Response
"Thank you for your interest in Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust. Your request has been handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). As you are probably aware, this legislation provides public access to recorded information held by a public authority unless an appropriate exemption applies.
Please find below the Trust’s response to your request that we received on
16 May 2025" :

"Could you please inform me of the steps being taken to ensure that Mersey NHS Trust is compliant with the recent Supreme Court Ruling on the definition of 'woman' and'sex' in the 2010 Equalities act - especially as that relates to 'single sex accommodations' ( referred to as 'Same Sex' in your documents).Having read through your policy document it seems oddly contradictory. On one handthe importance of 'privacy' and 'dignity' and 'same sex' accommodation is stressed as being of utmost importance, with suggestions that any sustained breaches be escalated to executive level, whilst on the other hand having a policy which suggests that individuals should be accommodated according to their 'gender presentation'"

"Our SA47 Delivering Single Sex Accommodation policy was last reviewed in June 2024 and will be updated to reflect the technical guidance that is scheduled to be published from end of June 2025. We have already convened an extraordinary meeting around the implications of the Supreme Court Ruling in preparation of the changes anticipated post technical guidance publication, at end of June 2025.Until this formal guidance has been ratified and published by the EHRC, we will continue to follow all currently ratified policies and as previously informed, we will review all aspects including those made in your enquiry regarding SA47"

I've submitted Medway Hospital. It has a current Rainbow Badge page on its website. I couldn't find a single sex accommodation policy (on staff intranet if it's there), or policies for trans staff or patients. They seem keen on LGBTQIA+ but not on writing/sharing related policies.