Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to implement the findings of the Sullivan Review.

The Department is taking forward work to consider the findings of the Sullivan Review, which sets out a number of recommendations relating to the collection of data on sex and gender identity. We are assessing these recommendations in the context of ongoing work on data harmonisation standards. As all public bodies, and therefore all public data and statistics, were in scope for the review, it is important that we consider the findings collaboratively across government.

The Government Statistical Service Harmonisation Programme, a cross-government work programme looking to improve the comparability and coherence of data and statistics, is developing harmonised standards for sex and gender identity. More information is available at the following link:

https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2024/12/11/developing-harmonised-standards-for-sex-and-gender-identity/

NHS England is leading work to develop the United Information Standard for Protected Characteristics, which focusses on the Equality Act 2010’s nine protected characteristics, including both sex and gender reassignment.

Through the Health and Care Statistics Leadership Forum, a group convening statistical leaders across health organisations at the national level to ensure statistical collaboration and coherence, work is underway to catalogue and improve descriptions of how sex and gender data is collected within our statistical publications, ensuring that labels accurately describe the data being collected. More information about the forum is available at the following link:

https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/blog/guest-blog-challenges-and-opportunities-for-health-and-care-statistics/