Campaigners Concerned Private Clinics Can Still Administer Puberty Blockers

File photo of a junior doctor holding his stethoscope at The Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital in East Lancashire on May 17, 2020. Hannah McKay/PA Wire

Campaigners have expressed concern that despite the NHS banning puberty blockers, they are still available via private clinics, which remain a “wild-west operation.”

On Tuesday, NHS England announced that it would no longer prescribe puberty suppressing hormones (PSH), which pause the physical changes of puberty, citing a lack of evidence that the drugs are safe. The drugs would remain available as part of clinical research trials.

NHS England said in its guidance, “We have concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of PSH to make the treatment routinely available at this time.”

However, puberty blockers are still available to minors via private clinics, prompting concerns from lawmakers and campaigners.

‘Rogue Private Sector Providers’

Bev Jackson, the cofounder of LGB Alliance, told The Epoch Times by email, “The experience of the last few years shows there is no shortage of activists who will advise parents to take their children to rogue private sector providers who are not interested in evidence-based medicine.”

Ms. Jackson said, “We hope most responsible parents will look at NHS England’s decision that puberty blockers are not a safe and effective treatment and will make the decision to follow best practice, not private practice.”

Former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s Health and Equality Acts (Amendment) Bill is going before the Commons on Friday for debate and would ban the prescription of puberty-suppressing drugs to gender-confused children, both privately and on the NHS.

LGB Alliance expressed its support for Ms. Truss’s bill, telling The Epoch Times that they have asked MPs to back it in order to close the loophole.

“We understand private members’ bills have a low probability of becoming law. LGB Alliance therefore urges the government to put in place rigorous legal proposals for banning harmful experimental medical procedures for minors,” Ms. Jackson said.

“Parents have been misled by unscrupulous activists to believe that blockers are best practice. We are relieved NHS England has recognised this is not the case, and hope that parents come to understand their children need evidence-based, neutral health care—not procedures proven to be ineffective while leading to negative, irreversible and lifelong effects,” she added.

Private Clinics a ‘Wild-West Operation’

Maya Forsater, executive director of Sex Matters, likewise expressed concern about the operation of private clinics, telling The Epoch Times by email that “private gender medicine remains a wild-west operation.”

Ms. Forsater said the General Medical Council has “tried and failed to regulate practitioners who will prescribe medication without in-depth investigation.”

“The private member’s bill going before the House of Commons on Friday would make it an offence for any regulated health care provider—whether NHS or private, in any part of the UK—to give puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to anyone under the age of 18.”

Ms. Forsater had previously endorsed the proposed legislation, saying on social media platform X last week, “This bill will make the law clear that ’sex' in the Equality Act means biological sex and children must be protected and allowed to grow up healthy in their own body.”

Making Prescribing Puberty Blockers an Offence

Ms. Truss’s bill would make it an offence for a health care professional to “prescribe, administer or supply a medicinal product to a child as part of a course of treatment for gender dysphoria” for the purposes of “stopping or delaying the normal onset of puberty, or affirming the child’s perception of their sex where that perception is inconsistent with the child’s sex.”

It would also clearly define “sex” as biological sex, ban men from competing in women’s sports, and bar men from entering women’s-only spaces like changing rooms.

Private Members’ bills are introduced by parliamentarians who are not government ministers. A minority become law without government support.

The former prime minister said last week her bill would, by defining sex in law as biological sex, end “the absurd and dangerous situation where biological males self-defining as females can access girls’ and women’s toilets” and sports.

“It will provide protection for vulnerable children and teenagers who otherwise could be led down a path of making body-altering decisions that they may come to regret, while giving essential legal clarity to parents and teachers,” she added.

PA Media contributed to this report.