NHS gender identity service to close and be replaced by regional centres

The sole service in England treating children and adolescents for gender dysphoria will be shut down and a network of regional centres established, after a review concluded that a single specialist provider model was “not safe.”

The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust in London will be discontinued after recommendations in the interim report from Hilary Cass, former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.1

A multiprofessional review group set up by NHS England found that the service operated a predominantly “affirmative, non-exploratory approach, often driven by child and parent expectations” and that there was “limited evidence of . . . a discipline of …