Gender Recognition: Prescriptions

(asked on 11th February 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 29 Jan 2020 to Question 4747 on Gender Recognition: Prescriptions, in cases where general practitioners have declined to accept prescribing responsibility for products related to gender identity (a) how people requesting those medications received that medication via other NHS routes and (b) what signposting information NHS England provides for those people on accessing medication other than via their general practitioner.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 24th February 2020

In accordance with current clinical protocols and NHS England commissioning documents, responsibility for prescribing hormone treatments rests solely with the individual’s general practitioner (GP) on the recommendation of a specialist gender dysphoria team. If a patient is refused a prescription by their GP then a patient has no alternative other than registering with a new GP.

To address this, in 2019 NHS England updated its service specification so that an individual will only be transferred from a Gender Dysphoria Clinic to primary care when their clinical condition is stable or predictable. Additionally, the Gender Dysphoria Clinic will retain responsibility for providing prescriptions and monitoring until the GP has agreed to a transfer of responsibility through a shared care agreement.

NHS England has established a working group, chaired by the Royal College of General Practitioners and comprising of representatives of the British Medical Association and British Association of Gender Identity Specialists, to provide advice on effecting these changes.

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