Transgender People: Provision of Healthcare Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Rebecca Smith
Main Page: Rebecca Smith (Conservative - South West Devon)Department Debates - View all Rebecca Smith's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(1 day, 8 hours ago)
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Rachel Taylor
I thank my hon. Friend for sharing that experience. It reflects the reality for many trans young people and adults in the UK: discrimination from healthcare professionals, waiting lists stretching over years, a complete lack of local provision and a reliance on less well-regulated private providers. That is the state of healthcare for trans people in Britain today. It is woeful and inadequate, and it is letting people down.
The consequences are serious. Almost one in four transgender people avoid going to the doctor altogether for fear of mistreatment. They delay cancer screenings and push aside chronic pain, and their health outcomes worsen as a result.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
The NHS has finally issued a call for evidence regarding a clinical pathway for adults who wish to detransition. Does the hon. Lady agree that that is a welcome and long-overdue first step, and that the NHS must continue making serious efforts to improve care for detransitioners?
Rachel Taylor
As I welcome services for trans people, I also welcome services for those people who do not feel happy in the gender that they have acquired. That is only right, but we have to get all those services right.
Trans people are now seeing their health outcomes worsen. Waiting times for gender-affirming healthcare are nothing short of a national scandal. Across the UK as of March 2025, more than 48,000 trans adults remained on waiting lists for that care. We rightly debate NHS waiting lists in this place: a year for a hip replacement; months for cancer screening. Nobody finds those waits acceptable, but freedom of information requests reveal that the average wait for gender services is 12 years in England, two years in Wales, 41 years in Northern Ireland and a staggering 58 years in Scotland. At one Scottish clinic, the wait was three times longer than the average British life expectancy.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I will be brief because we are running out of time. Detransitioners are an often marginalised and misunderstood group. Ritchie Herron is a civil servant who underwent gender surgery in 2018 in order to live as a woman. That involved rearranging tissue in the genital area to create a vaginal opening. When he decided to detransition, he was concerned that specialists were unable to advise him clearly about the correct dosages of hormones that he should take during the process to avoid increasing his risk of osteoporosis. In brief, I simply ask the Minister what her Department is doing to look at how the NHS supports those who are detransitioning? That is not to say that those who are transitioning should not be able to access the support that they need, but what is the NHS doing to support those who want to detransition, especially those who experienced puberty blockers at a young age?