James Kirkup James Kirkup

Tavistock gender clinic whistleblowers have been vindicated

(Photo by Hollie Adams/Getty Images)

The Care Quality Commission has released its reports on the gender identity services offered by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. They make for grim reading.

The CQC describes an NHS facility that — until last month — put vulnerable children on a pathway to the use of untested medicines and life-changing interventions, sometimes without keeping proper records proving consent for treatment or demonstrating the reasons for that treatment. An NHS service where staff were afraid to raise concerns about procedure and practice for fear of ‘retribution’ from their employers. An NHS service that failed to ask fundamental questions about the growing number of vulnerable children being presented for treatment.

You can read the full core CQC report here, but a very good, sober summary of the investigation here on the BBC website. (Given that I’ve sometimes criticised the BBC’s coverage of gender issues, it’s right that I say that today’s coverage is solid and professional.)

These CQC conclusions are a significant vindication of a small but important group of people who have been raising concerns and questions about the Tavistock and its Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) for several years. They include whistleblowers from the Trust such as Marcus Evans, a psychoanalyst and one of the governors of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust who in 2019 resigned over the management of the service. They include clinicians such as Kirsty Entwistle, who I wrote about here in 2019. And they include David Bell, another Tavistock clinician who first raised concerns about the GIDS in 2018.

The accounts of these whistleblowers have not been welcomed by people who should have listened. In some cases, the Trust appears to have sought to penalise them: Dr Bell is currently raising money for legal advice over what he says are ‘disciplinary proceedings which the Tavistock and Portman Trust has instituted against him in connection with his speaking and writing on the subject of Gender Dysphoria.’

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in