Children with gender dysphoria will no longer be treated with puberty blockers, NHS England has confirmed.
It comes after an evidence review by NICE in 2020 as well as research published since then that has been evaluated by an NHS England policy working group.
The working group concluded there is ‘not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of [puberty suppressing hormones] to make the treatment routinely available at this time’
Children and young people already receiving puberty suppressing hormones will not be subject to the new policy, documents confirmed.
Changes to the way gender identify services are provided to children on the NHS have been made in response to the Cass Review which published interim findings in 2022.
Dr Hilary Cass, a former President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, found that there had been a rapid increase in the number of children requiring support for gender dysphoria which meant having a single national provider – the Tavistock service in London – was not sustainable.
The report also noted there had been no routine and consistent data collection in order to accurately track outcomes and a lack of consensus and open discussion about the appropriate clinical response.
A public consultation on how care should be provided to children and young people through specialist gender incongruence services was done in 2022 and received more than 5,000 responses.
An interim service specification published last year had already stated the intention to ban prescriptions of puberty blockers to under-18s, unless as part of a clinical research study or in exceptional circumstances.
While the new policy is not contingent on a clinical trial being set up to evaluate treatment with puberty blockers, work is underway to develop a study design but it will still need to pass ethics approval processes, NHS England said.
New commissioning plans involving regional hubs will come into place in April with services in Liverpool and Great Ormond Street Hospital opening as the service at the Tavistock closes. There had been some debate about who would be able to refer into the new services.
In response to the ‘landmark decision’, health minister Maria Caulfield said children’s safety and wellbeing is paramount.
‘Ending the routine prescription of puberty blockers will help ensure that care is based on evidence, expert clinical opinion and is in the best interests of the child.’
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Awww! Life for so many mums of teens would be so much easier if we could just put them all on ‘puberty blockers’ until they were past that stage of adolescence……..