Northern Region Gender Dysphoria Service - A Timeline
2009 - 2023: from Broom Cupboards to Jewel in the Crown?
The Northern Region Gender Dysphoria Service (NRGDS) started life as a small, obscure service cobbled together from bits of staff time but it has grown phenomenally over the last few years. It is currently managed by Cumbria, Northumbria, Tyne & Wear NHS Trust (CNTW) and funded by NHS England Specialised Services Commissioning for “Gender Services”:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/npc-crg/gender-dysphoria-clinical-programme/
Some people might question whether the increase in funding represents legitimate use of scarce NHS resources?
TIMELINE
The Northern Region Gender Dysphoria Service and some other relevant developments.
Pre-2009 NRGDS existed but I have not searched for records pre-2009
2009 NRGDS: part of Northumberland, Tyne & Wear NHS Trust (NTW), no team base, contracted to see 30 new patients a year
https://web.archive.org/web/20090430185200/http://www.ntw.nhs.uk/section.php?l=3&p=143
2012 NRGDS: still no team base (possibly sharing some staff with Leeds GIC?)
https://web.archive.org/web/20120505083123/http://www.ntw.nhs.uk/sd.php?l=2&d=9&sm=15&id=240
2013 Royal College of Psychiatrists: Good Practice Guidelines For The Assessment And Treatment Of Adults With Gender Dysphoria
https://web.archive.org/web/20150419220838/http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/usefulresources/publications/collegereports/cr/cr181.aspx
2013 NHS England: Interim Gender Dysphoria Protocol and service Guideline 2013/14
https://web.archive.org/web/20151004085310/http://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/int-gend-proto.pdf
2014 NRGDS: still just one (part-time?) Speech & Language Therapist
https://web.archive.org/web/20150918173013/http://www.ntw.nhs.uk/fileUploads/1403014306Gender%20Dysphoria%20Service%20Leaflet.pdf
2015 NHS England Blog:
16 Sept 2015 Improving communication about gender identity services
https://www.england.nhs.uk/blog/will-huxter/
30 October 2015 Reducing variation in gender identity services
https://www.england.nhs.uk/blog/will-huxter-2/
8 December 2015 We’re working to strengthen transgender links
https://www.england.nhs.uk/blog/will-huxter-3/
2015 Women & Equalities Select Committee
Transgender equality inquiry
https://committees.parliament.uk/work/6033/transgender-equality-inquiry/
8 Dec 2015 Report on Transgender Equality
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmwomeq/390/390.pdf
2016 NHS England Blog
15 January 2016 Focus on transgender equality highlights poor experience of trans people in daily lives
https://www.england.nhs.uk/blog/will-huxter-5/
2017 NTW: Northumberland Tyne & Wear NHS Trust celebrates International Transgender Day of Visibility
https://web.archive.org/web/20210226163424/https://www.cntw.nhs.uk/news/ntw-supporting-celebrating-international-day-transgender-visibility/
2018 NHS England Blog: Next steps in shaping the future of specialised gender identity services
2019 NTW joins the Stonewall Diversity Champions Programme
Stonewall Diversity Champions Programme
https://www.stonewall.org.uk/diversity-champions-programme
14 Jan 2019 NTW celebrates LGBT+ Diversity Champion status
https://web.archive.org/web/20210412030242/https://www.cntw.nhs.uk/news/ntw-celebrates-lgbt-diversity-champion-status/
25 March 2019 North East NHS Trust joins national LGBT charity Stonewall Diversity Champion programme for LGBT inclusionhttps://www.cntw.nhs.uk/news/north-east-nhs-trust-joins-national-lgbt-charity-stonewall-diversity-champion-programme-for-lgbt-inclusion/
2019 NTW flies the original version of the “rainbow flag” on the International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT)
NHS staff flying the flag for the LGBT+ community
14 May 2019
2019 Equal Rights Coalition: UK and Argentina take on co-chair of Equal Rights Coalition
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-argentina-take-on-co-chair-of-equal-rights-coalition )
2019 NRGDS information about Gender Dysphoria on the NTW website was still just a link to the NHS website
https://web.archive.org/web/20190401074600/https://www.ntw.nhs.uk/resource-library/?filter_letter=G
Get ready for the big uplift in funding from the NHS Specialist Commissioners.
2021 - 11 staff
Consultant in Gender Dysphoria x 5,
Psychosexual Therapist
Clinical Psychologist
Speech and Language Therapist
Specialist Nurse (RNMH) x 2
Team Manager (RMHN)
2023 - 30 staff
Consultant in Gender Dysphoria x 5
Consultant Endocrinologist
GP specialist in gender dysphoria x 2
Psychiatry Core Trainee/Trust Grade in Gender Dysphoria
Consultant Clinical Psychologist
Senior Clinical Psychologist
Assistant Psychologist x 2
Lead Speech and Language Therapist
Advance Speech and Language Therapist
Speech and Language Therapist,
Team Manager (RMHN)
Specialist Nurse (RMHN)
Specialist Nurse x 4
Pathway Co-ordinator
Administration Team Lead
Administration Officer x 2
Administration Assistant
Senior Peer Supporter (trans) x 3
The Peer Support Service sounds like the new "Trans Heath Service" that NHS England said it was going to pilot. Run at a local college, it is partly social and partly activism. Quite why this is being funded by the NHS is a mystery when the NHS does not fund "Social Care" and political activism for other populations, eg. Learning Disability, Eating Disorders, etc.
The whole information section for the NRGDS has been bigger and has looked different to the other CNTW services for a few years (since 2019?).
From the look of the website, it's as if NRGDS is "hosted" by the Trust rather than being part of it.
Compare NRGDS with other CNTW Services
This is the index page for the whole NRGDS "mini-site within a site" package:
Compare with the the info provided for other services in the same Directorate (or whatever they call it these days).
All these services are under separate contracts and some have being hanging by a thread for decades:
https://www.cntw.nhs.uk/services/?filter_page=2&filter_keyword&filter_type=468&filter_letter=all
The pages for other services contain a LOT less info than the Regional Gender Dysphoria Service. Just a few lines in some cases with a link to one page on the Trust “Resources” section.
Whereas the RGDS space on the Trust website is hugely more detailed, has a different look and is completely self-contained. None of the other services seem to have detailed Staff Profiles. Although I haven't looked at all of them, I can't imagine that like the NRGDS they include a section on interests and hobbies for each member of staff!
I wonder if the difference is partly to do with the line that trans people are not "mentally ill"? So their services have to be partitioned off, "to reduce stigma" by association with what is primarily a mental health and learning disability Trust?
Difference in funding will have an impact too. The Trust isn't throwing money at bigging-up the Community MS Team, or anyone else, but it has put a lot of resources into showcasing NRGDS.
In 10 years, but mostly in the last two, NRGDS has gone from being a poor relation broom-cupboard service scattered across a 30 mile area to a jewel in the crown. It is surrounded by a hotchpotch of small, specialist neuro-rehab services that have a continual battle to stay afloat.
Where Stonewall comes in is: right at the top, inside NHS Specialist Commissioning, deciding what is funded and lobbying for more funding.
That is an article for another day.
In the meantime, see this previous post about the NRGDS: