BBC — NHS to close Tavistock child gender identity clinic (2022)
On 28 July 2022, BBC News reported that the NHS would close the only specialist gender clinic for children and young people in the United Kingdom. The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust was instructed to cease operations in spring 2023. The article was written by Jasmine Andersson and Andre Rhoden-Paul.
The main article on this subject is Gender care in the United Kingdom.
The closure followed the interim report of the independent review led by paediatrician Hilary Cass, later known as the Cass Review. She concluded that a single national clinic was not a safe or sustainable long-term solution.
Key points
According to the BBC, regional centres will be established, starting in London and the North West of England, working with children's hospitals such as Great Ormond Street and Alder Hey. The number of referrals had risen from around 250 to 5,000 a year over a decade, with an average waiting time of two years. The article quotes both Keira Bell, who brought legal proceedings against the clinic, and advocacy organisation Stonewall. How the BBC handled critical reporting on gender internally is described by gendermedia.nl in an article about the Prescott memo at the BBC.
Background to the clinic
GIDS was founded in 1989 by Domenico Di Ceglie and moved to Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in 1994. From 2009, it was a nationally commissioned service. In January 2021, regulator the Care Quality Commission gave the service its lowest rating, inadequate, partly because of long waiting times and poor record-keeping. In December 2020, the High Court ruled in the case of Keira Bell that children under the age of thirteen were highly unlikely to be able to consent to puberty blockers; the Court of Appeal overturned that ruling in September 2021.
What happened next
The closure came later than planned. GIDS closed permanently on 31 March 2024. On 1 April 2024, two new services opened: one in the North West of England, a partnership between Alder Hey Children's Hospital and Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, and one in London, a partnership between Great Ormond Street Hospital, Evelina London and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. According to NHS England, these are the first of up to eight regional centres. In July 2022, the Royal College of Psychiatrists responded to the announcement by noting that more evidence was needed on care for gender-diverse children, and welcomed the plans for further research. The final report of the review is archived here under Cass Review (UK, 2024).
Why it is included in this archive
The report marks a turning point in British gender care for young people and is frequently cited in the international debate. On the timeline on this site, the event appears under the closure of the Tavistock gender clinic.