The Government has brought in an emergency ban on private prescribing of puberty blockers to children and young people.
Earlier this year, NHS England banned routine prescription of puberty blockers on the NHS for children with gender dysphoria, after a working group found there is not sufficient evidence to support their ‘safety or clinical effectiveness’.
The Government said it had also introduced ‘indefinite restrictions’ on the prescribing of puberty blockers within NHS primary care.
Now, the Government has introduced regulations which apply to all UK private prescribers, as well as prescribers registered in the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland.
The emergency ban, which will last from 3 June and 3 September, will mean that no new patients under 18 will be prescribed these medicines as treatment for gender dysphoria.
However, patients who are already being treated with puberty blockers can continue to access them.
Under the regulations, puberty blockers are defined as ‘gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues’, which are medicines consisting of buserelin, gonadorelin, goserelin, leuprorelin acetate, naferelin or triptorelin.
Patients can also continue to access these medicines if it is for a ‘purpose other than treatment for the purpose of puberty suppression in respect of either or a combination of gender dysphoria and gender incongruence’, the emergency ban said.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said these new regulations will ‘address risks to patient safety’.
This ban will apply across England, Wales and Scotland, and DHSC has encouraged patients seeking further information to speak to their doctor.
Last month, the Cass review concluded that children and young people seeking NHS care for gender-related distress have been let down by the ‘remarkably weak evidence base’ and an increasingly toxic public debate.
The report concluded no clinician should be expected to prescribe outside their competence and that GPs should not be expected to enter into a shared care arrangement with a private provider, ‘particularly if that private provider is acting outside NHS guidance’.
In December, Pulse reported that children aged 16 waiting for gender identity appointments were being advised to ask their GP for an adult referral, because they will become ineligible for the children’s pathway before they can be seen.
Did that Tavistock, and some psychologists, create more problems than they solved and is the effect still felt today?
Is it right to offer operations to people who just want to be who they are? Also, it seems that some people think that ‘gender’ and ‘gender identity’ are the same thing: perhaps they need to wake up ( are they called ‘wokes’ ironically? ): unbelievable. You wonder who is teaching children what in our schools; and wonder who are teaching doctors and nurses what in the NHS too. Were NHSE behind Tavistock and they thought they all knew better than GPs? It is little wonder that Sir K Starmer MP seems to change his mind when asked if a women (usually of course) has a cervix or not, then he backpedals. Heaven help
lower mortals (without a medical degree?), or psychologists, people who think they are woke, teachers, children and even the whole population.
Also, is it right to take a person seriously who thinks they are one gender identity one day, and then a different gender identity another day? and to offer them an operation just to add to the muddle?
NHSE and some Tavistock psychologists seemed to create quite a trail. A travesty.
The ripples from the Cass review keep spreading. It makes me wonder how long before adult gender care starts to feel the effect… are we due a Cass review of adult services?