As of 11th April 2025, NHS England and NHS Sussex has forced us to temporarily pause initiating new NHS prescriptions for gender affirming care to anyone under the age of 18. This includes a ban on taking over prescriptions from the private sector.
They did this by threatening to close us down altogether if we did not comply. We had to consider all 25,000 patients (including about 2000 TNBI people) registered at WellBN and the risk to their healthcare were this threat to be carried out.
We are waiting to have a meeting with NHS Sussex to discuss this, and we will do our best to turn this decision around. We will continue to prescribe to young patients who are already under WellBN’s care and/or for whom we have already overtaken private prescriptions – the demand is specifically in relation to the initiation of new prescriptions.
This means that if you are 17 years old, you will need to wait until you turn 18 to start HRT with us under our informed consent pathway. You can still have a comprehensive trans health review at one of our clinics with a supportive and affirming clinician – our care coordinators and health care assistants will be able to discuss HRT with you, and you will be able to get your baseline blood test done.
We are sorry to be passing on this news, but rest assured we will continue to battle against this injustice – we have a strong case to present considering that bodily autonomy is one of the four pillars of modern medical ethics. Please bear with us while we do our best to address this in the coming months. We will keep you updated of developments as they happen.
In the meantime, there might be other ways we could support your wellbeing while you wait to turn 18, so please get in touch with our Trans Health Hub team at sxicb-bh.transhealthhub@nhs.net if you have any questions or queries about gender affirming care and local TNBI resources.
With solidarity and rage,
The Trans Health Hub team at WellBN