Improving access to healthcare for trans and gender-diverse Londoners

Trans and gender-diverse people can experience health inequalities and discrimination when accessing healthcare in the UK.

The barriers faced in accessing timely and appropriate gender-affirmative healthcare has hit the headlines in recent times, with many waiting years for the treatment and support they need.

However, what is not as well-understood are the experiences of trans and gender-diverse people when accessing general NHS services to meet their non-gender related healthcare needs.

An investigation into the issued by the London Assembly Health Committee heard examples of microaggressions, misgendering and using incorrect pronouns within the NHS.

The report Trans health matters: improving access to healthcare for trans and gender-diverse Londoners makes the following recommendations:

• Recommendation 1: Using the principles of the Health Inequalities Strategy, the Mayor should convene a consultative group comprised of Londoners with lived experience and subject experts.
• Recommendation 2: NHS Digital should improve NHS IT systems so that all healthcare providers are able to record trans status in a consistent and inclusive way.
• Recommendation 3: In the interim, while system-wide NHS data collection improvements are made, the Mayor should urgently commission research in association with the NHS into the healthcare needs of TGD people in London.
• Recommendation 4: The Committee endorses Stonewall’s recommendation that training providers, medical and nursing schools, and royal colleges should review training and curricula to ensure that LGBT health inequalities, and the healthcare needs of all LGBT patients and service users, are included as part of compulsory and ongoing training.
• Recommendation 5: The London Health Board should work with the trans and gender-diverse consultative group to:
  • assess how to commission trans-inclusive training programmes for primary care services, such as Pride in Practice, across all London boroughs
  • work with NHS Trusts to encourage and support non-clinical staff to provide a trans and gender-diverse inclusive environment
  • encourage GP practices to:
    • review existing policies to ensure they are trans and gender-diverse friendly. These revised policies should be available on practice websites
    • review their surgeries to ensure they are trans friendly, including by displaying LGBT+ posters and leaflets
  • work with NHS partners to consider how to monitor and map healthcare services that have undergone and maintained training, so that trans and gender diverse Londoners can identify and locate inclusive services.
• Recommendation 6: The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities should fund an awareness campaign to explain how to disclose trans and gender-diverse status to healthcare providers and the benefits of doing so.