Transgender children will be banned from getting a new NHS record following an intervention by Wes Streeting.
The health service has been ordered to stop issuing new NHS numbers to under-18s who want to change their gender, following a damning independent review.
Until now, adults or children of any age have been allowed to request a gender change on their medical record at any time.
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Mr Streeting, the Health Secretary, declared that “children’s safety must come first” as he confirmed the changes on Thursday.He said: “It’s completely wrong that children’s NHS numbers can be changed if they change gender, and I’ve made it clear this must not happen.
“We must deliver safe and holistic care for both adults and children when it comes to gender, and that also means accurately recording biological sex – not just for research and insight, but also for patient safety.
“I have always made it clear that doing so does not stop us from recording, recognising and respecting people’s gender identity where these differ.
“As we reform gender identity services across the board, we’ll take forward the serious research this review highlights.”
Your NHS record has a gender marker that the system doesn’t allow to be changed, so you need a completely new record (and number) to have it changed.
That sounds like a programming limitation that should be amended then, rather than requiring the re-issue of a new number just because somebody can’t be arsed to write the code to allow it to be changed.
The NHS systems are so antiquated at this point. They really need a complete re-write to be fit for purpose.
Exactly, sounds like they’re making a mountain out of a stupidly simple record keeping change. Fucking idiots.
I don’t think it’s that simple. The three hospitals closest to us belong to two different trusts and use different systems, the GPs are free to chose their own systems and our GPs doesn’t play well with the local pharmacies systems that are also different….
From an IT viewpoint it’s probably easier to create a new patient record.
Oh I don’t disagree with you. But creating a new record to consolidate several different ones is what you’re describing. I’m saying when there should only be one you should just flip a bit on that record.
But this is typical NHS IT shit show. Why the fuck are they different systems in 2025? Why are we duplicating work with zero interoperability?
Because the last attempt to unify NHS systems into one central system (The National Program for IT aka NPfIT) turned into a typical mega-budget IT project that got nowhere?
What we should be prioritising is data interoperability standards that solutions can be qualified against so things work smoothly. Not giving one of the big contractors a frame contract that locks the whole NHS into a single provider for the next 20 years.
Agree, but yet we don’t even have that. It’s so backwards. I’d have a better chance if I asked my medical records to be faxed to me and I then posted them to my GP. And I don’t even own a fax machine!
It should be changed, but it’s worked like this for ages now and I doubt Streeting will push for this…