Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an estimate of the number of people who sought gender reassignment surgery in the last 12 months; and what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that people seeking that surgery are fully informed of the implications.

From 1 May 2021 to 30 April 2022, there were 2,600 referrals in the United Kingdom to a National Health Service commissioned provider of specialised surgical interventions for the alleviation of gender dysphoria. NHS England's service specification stipulates that a referral for surgery can only be made by an NHS-commissioned gender dysphoria clinic, following a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

The specification also requires the patient's lead clinician in the specialist gender dysphoria clinic to ensure that patients are aware of the longer-term consequences of the interventions offered to them. The operating surgeon is required to obtain consent for the proposed intervention at a specific pre-operative appointment, to allow an informed process and for the patient to consider any relevant options and alternatives. It is the surgeon’s responsibility to determine that an individual is sufficiently healthy, physically and psychologically, to undergo surgery.