Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made a comparative assessment of the UK’s position on the prescription of puberty blockers for the treatment of gender incongruence with that of other European countries.

The Cass Review is one of the most comprehensive reviews of gender identity services for children and young people to date worldwide.

The Cass review included an assessment of evidence from other countries and concluded that there was a lack of evidenced-based guidelines and, therefore, limitations for adopting these for National Health Service gender services. Informed by the Cass review, we are now reforming transgender care for young people in this country, based on the best possible evidence. That means a holistic approach, with puberty suppressing hormones only considered within a much broader needs assessment, and only then in the context of a clinical trial. We are committed to implementing the recommendations of the Cass Review, as that is the care model we believe to be the best approach in the interests of patient safety.

It is simply not possible for pharmacists to check whether prescriptions issued from overseas registered prescribers have been issued in a similarly safe and effective way, and we know that some overseas providers who advertise their services do not follow this approach.