- Does your Trust provide mental health services for children and young people?
Yes.
2. NHS England has decided that referrals to children and young people’s gender services must come from NHS Paediatric or mental health services. It has said that this will come into effect from 1 September 2024 to allow time for NHS services to adjust their operating protocols. Please outline what changes you have made to your operating protocols in response to this decision by NHS England and what date these changes were made by.
We are remaining within our existing operating protocols at this time.
3. Can you identify:
a) Which staff assess patients requesting access to gender services.
All registered professional staff who provide mental health assessments to children and young people in CAMHS and have completed the mind-ed module titled – ‘Supporting Children and Young People with gender questions or distress and their sexual orientation for health and education professionals (4 parts) before assessing a CYP presenting with these needs.
Going forward the expectation is that all staff will complete the mind-ed training.
We work as a multidisciplinary team so staff with any uncertainty have the opportunity to discuss with a more experienced clinician and are encouraged to do so.
We are developing links with the regional team based in Bristol for access to further expertise.
A small number of staff within our service who have additional training in this area already are meeting to set out how they will ensure others can access their expertise, these staff will be supported to maintain and develop their knowledge.
b) Which staff decide whether to refer onward to gender services.
As above
c) What is the basis of the decision whether to refer to gender services.
At this time we will be guided by the NHSE guidance for the Gender Incongruence Service for CYP Referral Pathway, combined with knowledge gained through training and opportunity to discuss with more experienced staff.
- Please outline any training your trust provides staff around trans healthcare. Please include:
-
- the title of the training Supporting the LGBTQ+ Community
- the length of the training 1.5 hours
- who provides the training Sophie Cook Talks
- what staff group it is for All staff
- whether it is mandatory It is not mandatory
- What percentage of staff who assess patients requesting access to gender services have completed the training listed above around trans healthcare?
We have not made the training mandatory to any particular staff group and therefore we are unable to provide any percentage compliance data.