Home » NHS Lothian confirms assessment and referral for gender affirming surgeries for 18-24 year olds can now go ahead at Chalmers Gender Identity Clinic

NHS Lothian has confirmed that 18-24 year olds will once again be able to be assessed and referred for gender affirming surgery at Chalmers Gender Identity Clinic

This follows a pause:

  • from May – October for people over 25 being assessed and referred for surgeries that take place in England ((masculinising top surgery, vaginoplasty, phalloplasty/metoidioplasty)
  • from May until Saturday, 23rd November for people aged 18-24 being assessed and referred for all gender affirming surgeries.

You can read the update here: All referrals for gender-affirming surgery resumed in NHS Lothian | Lothian Sexual Health

 

We’re really pleased that the pause has been lifted, and that NHS Lothian has acknowledged the impact this will have had on those people who should have been assessed and/or referred for surgery during this time.

We still think that it isn’t very clear why this pause happened. In particular, we’re not sure why it took longer to recommence assessments and referrals for people aged 18-24.

We will be meeting with members of staff from NHS Lothian and East Lothian Health and Social Care Partnership (who manage Chalmers Gender Identity Clinic) this week (25th November), after we wrote to them in October trying to understand what was going on: https://www.scottishtrans.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/NHS-Lothian-Medical-Director-Chief-Executive-ELHSCP-Director-letter-14.10.24.pdf

We hope this will help us to understand more about what happened, but more importantly, be reassured that these kinds of interruptions to people’s care will be avoided at all costs in the future.

Did you email your MSPs? Thank you!

There is no way to know for sure if getting in touch with MSPs helped to get the pause on surgical referrals removed sooner than would have happened anyway.

However, NHS Lothian had previously said that the pause for 18-24 year olds would be in place until at least January.

And getting in touch with MSPs also means they know that they have constituents who they represent who are directly affected by problems with trans healthcare, as well as constituents who care about trans healthcare improving, even if they don’t need to access it themselves.

This is really important – as so much needs to improve when it comes to gender identity services!

So thank you to everyone who took the time to email their MSPs.

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