Trans and non-binary people face hurdles at every stage of primary care
Key trends
The survey highlighted a range of administrative hurdles or poor staff attitudes that trans and non-binary people faced when they wanted to formally change their gender on their GP record or have their gender identity recognised in everyday interactions.
Of the 1393 respondents, 40% (565) said they had formally changed their gender marker on their GP record:
- 28% said they had lost access to a previous NHS record
- 18% said they were misgendered in NHS written communications
- 16% had experienced disrupted prescriptions
- 13% had disruption to ongoing care.
A new LGBT+ healthcare strategy
The research comes almost seven years after the launch of the 2018 LGBT Action Plan, a cross-government initiative which pledged to tackle health inequalities.
Healthwatch called for the government and NHS England to develop a new comprehensive LGBT+ healthcare strategy to ensure that trans and non-binary people get clarity on entitlements to gender-affirming referrals, medication and specialist care and are protected from loss of sex-specific healthcare if they change their gender.
