Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, following the publication of the report of the Review of Data, Statistics and Research on Sex and Gender, published on 19 March, what progress they have made in implementing the Review’s ten recommendations, both generally and specifically regarding The Collection of Client Level Adult Social Care Data (No 3) Directions 2023.

The Sullivan Review sets out a number of recommendations in relation to the collection of data on sex and gender identity. We are considering these in light of ongoing related work around data harmonisation standards. As all public bodies, and therefore all public data and statistics, were in scope for the review, it’s important we consider the findings in collaborative way across government.

The Government Statistical Service (GSS) Harmonisation Programme, a cross-government work programme looking to improve the comparability and coherence of data and statistics, is developing harmonised standards for sex and gender identity.

NHS England is leading work to develop the United Information Standard of Protected Characteristics, which focusses on the Equality Act 2010’s nine protected characteristics, including both sex and gender reassignment.

Through the Health and Care Statistics Leadership Forum, a group convening statistical leaders across health organisations at the national level to ensure statistical collaboration and coherence, there is work ongoing to catalogue, and improve descriptions of how sex and gender data is collected within our statistical publications, and ensure labelling accurately describes the data being collected.

Sex and gender identity are not always the same thing, and it is important for patients that we record both accurately. We are committed to delivering 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.

On 20 March, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care instructed the health service to immediately suspend applications for National Health Service number changes for under 18s, to safeguard children. It was completely wrong that children's NHS numbers can be changed if they change gender. Children's safety must come first.

We remain committed to recording, recognising and respecting people’s gender identity where these differ from their biological sex. General practitioners are currently able to rename a patient and manually input preferred pronouns and expressed gender in free text without affecting the formal marker.

Our guidance to local authorities on the collection of Client Level Data is under review to ensure it adheres to the advice in the Review of data, statistics and research on sex and gender. We are also awaiting guidance from the Government Statistical Service on harmonisations of sex and gender identity data.

The 2023 Directions set out national data requirements and do not necessarily cover all the information that local authorities collect to effectively discharge their statutory obligations.