The crisis at England's NHS child gender clinic

In January, England's only NHS gender clinic for children and young people was rated "inadequate" by the country's health watchdog - the lowest rating, meaning it is performing badly.

The findings make for sobering reading with inspectors raising "significant concerns" about the way the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) works.

Nearly 5,000 children are waiting - sometimes for up to two years - for an appointment, and the management team has been disbanded following the inspection. 

Now BBC News has had exclusive sight of an external report written in 2015 which recommended GIDS take drastic action.

It argued the service was "facing a crisis of capacity" to deal with an ever-increasing demand and strikingly it should "take the courageous and realistic action of capping the numbers of referrals immediately".

With Care Quality Commission inspectors recently confirming many of the risks highlighted still remain, some have expressed concern about why neither GIDS, nor NHS England, which has ultimate responsibility for the service, have done more to help the children and young people it cares for.

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Source: BBC News, 30 March 2021