Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the safety of the puberty blocker clinical trial to be undertaken by the NHS this year; and whether the trial is compatible with the indefinite ban on puberty blockers for under-18s announced in December 2024 by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

The Cass Review, which was the most robust evaluation of gender healthcare in the United Kingdom to date, took stock of all the available evidence regarding use of puberty blockers and concluded that, at present, there is insufficient evidence to support the use of these medicine for the treatment of gender dysphoria and/or incongruence. Similarly, the independent report by the Commission on Human Medicines concluded that there was an ‘absence of long-term safety and efficacy data for this population’.

Better-quality evidence is therefore critical if the National Health Service is to provide reliable, transparent information and advice to support children and young people. That is why the government is supporting NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to set up the ‘PATHWAYS: Puberty Suppression and Transitional Healthcare with Adaptive Youth Services’ study.

The PATHWAYS study proposal is going through all the usual review and approval stages. These include independent academic peer review and National Institute for Health and Care Research funding committee consideration, and it will need to secure full ethical approval ahead of set up and opening to recruitment. The design of the trial, including the safety of participants, is being considered and finalised as part of the approvals process. Subject to the study achieving the necessary approvals, the study protocol will be made available by NIHR in the public domain, as is usual for publicly funded studies. Only once all approvals are in place will the study commence.

Legal provision exists within the current prohibition, namely article 3, which allows the supply of GnRH analogues as part of an authorised clinical trial.