Calls for action to tackle waiting times for transgender people in Leeds
A transgender charity says something needs to change to bring waiting times down at Leeds' gender identity clinic.
A Yorkshire charity says something needs to change to bring waiting times down at Sheffield's gender identity clinic.
Transgender people are having to wait over a year on average to get an appointment at Leeds' gender identity clinic - which is one of only seven specialists clinics in the country.
Figures from April to June this year show the number of days a transgender patient will have to wait is around 580 days, up from just over 200 days during the same period in 2014.
Some charities fear the new figures released today won't show any improvements in the issue.
Yorkshire transgender charity Mermaid's now calling for an overhaul of the entire system to tackle the issue - Susie Green's their CEO:
"I think the waiting times are going to continue to grow because the clinics have no provision to add those extra people and deal with these extra people so the actual waiting times are going to increase due to the fact that demand is vastly outweighing resource."
"I really do believe that we need to be devolving some of this care to local GPs because it's not rocket-science treating somebody who is trans and if somebody’s been waiting on a waiting list for 2 and a half years then they're still trans. Passing that care onto a GP led model would cause an immediate reduction to the people sat waiting on those lists."
It's all down to a huge increase in demand - the clinic's seen its referrals increase from 154 in 2009/10 to 533 in 2015/16.
Susie says the NHS needs to keep up:
"We were seeing a huge upsurge in the numbers of people coming to us so we started putting in place ways to professionalise our charity to make us bigger and better and able to cope with that demand. Now we were doing that 2 and a half years ago, why weren't the NHS?"
"If they're just going to continue with the model that they have, I don't see how they can continue to give the care in the way that they have and deal with the increase in numbers. If they're not going to do something to change the way they deal with people, we're not going to see a reduction in waiting times."
A spokesperson for the Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust says: "There has been a significant National focus on the increasing demands and waiting times for all gender services nationally, which resulted in a piece of national work being undertaken in relation to this led by NHS England."
"Working with our commissioners, Leeds Gender Service developed a proposal to significantly increase the resource within the service and make changes to the clinical pathways in order to reduce the waiting times. This has been supported by an additional investment for the service, with effect from 1stApril 2016. We are pleased to confirm that we are therefore currently introducing a number of new clinical initiatives which will better support people on the waiting list as well as reduce planned waiting times, and are in the process of recruiting and training additional staff to deliver this."
"The service is no longer commissioned to a set activity level of new 160 patients per year, and we expect to significantly exceed this in 2016/17."