Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps have been taken in the last six months to reduce the waiting time for transsexual youths at the Tavistock Hospital Gender Identity Clinic.

Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust is working with NHS England to develop and implement measures to reduce waiting times. NHS England has increased funding for the Trust’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) by around 150% since 2015/16, but the Trust continues to face challenges in recruiting clinical staff in GIDs with significant experience and expertise.

The service has trialled several initiatives to provide support to young people who are referred, this includes - but is not limited to:

- an ongoing recruitment drive;

- initiatives to actively manage the waiting list offering consultations to local services in complex cases while they wait for specialist input;

- consultation sessions with local mental health services and group sessions with children under 10 years of age;

- regularly reviewing communication around the waiting lists to equip young people with information which is as accurate as possible about their wait;

- reviewing policies and procedures around first appointments, for example looking at Did Not Attend (DNA) policies to ensure those offered appointments to take them up;

- giving more attention to clinically appropriate timely transitions between the Trust’s gender identity service and adult services; and

- clinician operated ‘helpline’ for urgent enquiries/concerns from young people, their families and referrers on the waiting list.

NHS England has also committed to reviewing the service specification for GIDS in 2019/20.