NHS Makes Child Gender Identity Service Changes After High Court Ruling

NHS England has made amendments to service specification for the gender identity development service for children and adolescents, following a High Court judgment  on Tuesday. Three judges ruled children aged 13 or under, seeking help for gender dysphoria are “highly unlikely& [to] be competent to give consent to the administration of puberty blockers,” and that it was very doubtful that 14 and 15 year-olds could either.

England s only gender identity service is provided by the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, London, and its sister service at the Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

In those young people over 16 years, the law presumes that they have the ability to consent to medical treatment. However, the court cautioned that given the long-term consequences, and “innovative and experimental” nature of puberty blockers and cross sex hormones, “Clinicians may well regard these as cases where the authorisation of the court should be sought before starting treatment with puberty blocking drugs.”

Now, the NHS England service amendment states that, “Patients under 16 years must not be referred by the Gender Identity Development Service to paediatric endocrinology clinics for puberty blockers unless a ‘best interests’ order has been made by the Court for the individual in question.”

via www.medscape.com

Obvious yet unexpected.