As the controversial GIDS clinic at the Tavistock closes, two new hubs are replacing it - but insiders reveal their fears for patients
The Tavistock Centre is going to close following a critical report into the gender identity clinic for children and young people The new NHS gender identity clinics for young people are “nowhere near ready”, “understaffed”, and employing inexperienced clinicians who don’t have a finished treatment protocol in place, according to whistle-blowers who spoke toTwo new hubs, one in London and one in the northwest, will begin seeing patients this week, to replace the Gender Identity Development...
While work is underway to achieve this, including the opening of multiple hubs and many more staff, NHS England accepts that it is a significant and complex task which is not yet completed. Exact timeframes for completion, including recruitment, remain unclear. The first two hubs are opening a year later than planned, and the clinicians who spoke tofear even those first clinics are insufficiently prepared to cope with the size and complexity of the cases, or the waiting list.
NHS England’s aim for the new hubs, informed by the recommendations of Dr Cass, is to provide patients with a broader, more holistic service than what was offered at GIDS, with a “multi-disciplinary integrated approach to assessing and responding to an individual’s needs”. This, according to NHS England, would take into greater account other issues patients might present with and adopt a more exploratory role with patients.
It is unclear when a final protocol will be published but it is expected to follow the final Cass review, to incorporate her recommendations. This was due by the end of March 2024, but insiders believe it won’t be published until later this month, after the closure of GIDS.. According to one whistle-blower, who has been privy to discussions about recruitment to the new services, “they have 17 or 18 clinical staff in total across both clinics.
None of the current staff at GIDS are being re-employed in the new services. “I don’t think that’s the headline that NHS England want. They want the headline to be, ‘GIDS and its staff have nothing to do with these ,” said one member of staff. NHS England confirmed that staff are not being redeployed but did not elaborate further.
John Stewart, NHSE England’s national director for specialised commissioning, said recently: “Our aim is to establish between seven and eight specialist centres including the north and the south hubs over the next year to two years.” Staff raised their concerns internally and repeatedly, they said, but did not receive satisfactory answers and still do not know if anyone now has clinical oversight of the waiting list. Whenasked NHS Arden and GEM who has clinical oversight of this waiting list, a spokesperson replied: “This is a question for NHS England. NHS Arden and GEM administers the waiting list on their behalf.”
At the point the list was given to NHS Arden and GEM in November 2022, there were around 300 new referrals per month, said staff, so if that continued there would now be roughly 10,000 on the waiting list. Yet it stands at half of that. Some of these will be 17-year-olds who were removed from the youth waiting list and added to the adult services waiting list, but this, they said, would not explain all of that potentially 5,000 drop.
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