NHS sets out ‘safer’ care plan for child gender services

Additionally, care at the specialist centres will be overseen by a paediatrician or psychiatrist, with input from a range of other specialists.

Alongside mental health support and help for conditions such as autism, there will be an emphasis on supporting the whole family, including some social care provision in cases where there has been a breakdown in family relations.

Advice and guidance about social transitioning – when a young person presents as the opposite gender to their biological sex – will also be available.

The regional centres will also support young people turning 18 who wish to access adult gender care services, where hormone treatments and surgery are available – although these services are also set to be reviewed, NHS England has said.

NHS England medical director Prof Stephen Powis said the new system was about establishing a “fundamentally different and safer model of care for children and young people”.