Standards of Care

All the Scottish gender specialists currently follow the internationally accepted Standards of Care established by the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA) which is now known as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).  The Standards of Care are updated and revised as new scientific information becomes available.  The latest version of the Standards of Care is available free on http://www.wpath.org  

The Royal College of Psychiatry published for consultation in late 2006 their draft proposals for a set of UK-wide Standards of Care.  Several transgender groups responded to the consultation.  James Morton, who became the Scottish Transgender Alliance Development Worker in April 2007 was a volunteer at the LGBT Centre for Health & Wellbeing in Edinburgh at the time of the consultation.  He ran a consultation event for transgender people about the draft RCPsych Standards of Care on behalf of the LGBT Centre for Health & Wellbeing and wrote the LGBT Centre for Health & Wellbeing response to the Royal College of Psychiatry based upon the views given at the consultation event.  This response together with the RCPsych draft Standards of Care proposals are available via the Downloads box on this web page.

It is expected that the Royal College of Psychiatry will publish their final set of UK-wide Standards of Care in the middle of 2008.  Based upon their draft proposals, the Scottish Transgender Alliance fears that the final Royal College of Psychiatry’s final Standards of Care are likely to be a significant step backwards in service quality compared to the current WPATH Standards of Care.  It is expected that the pressure on Scottish gender specialists to follow unquestioningly any Royal College of Psychiatry Standards of Care will be immense.  We hope that the Scottish gender specialists will try to ensure that they do not reduce the service quality and level of patient-centred care they provide to trans people in Scotland.