Puberty blockers for under-18s with gender dysphoria will be banned indefinitely across the UK except for use in clinical trials, the government has announced.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said that after receiving advice from medical experts, he would make existing emergency measures banning the sale and supply of puberty blockers indefinite.
The Department of Health and Social Care said the Commission on Human Medicines (CHM) had published independent expert advice that there was “currently an unacceptable safety risk in the continued prescription of puberty blockers to children”.
Streeting said the commission had recommended indefinite restrictions while work is done to ensure the safety of children and young people.
The NHS announced in March that children would no longer be prescribed puberty blockers at gender identity clinics, with the then Conservative government saying this would help ensure care was based on evidence and was in the “best interests of the child”.
In May, that government introduced a ban on puberty blockers through emergency legislation, preventing the prescription of the medication from European or private prescribers and restricting NHS provision to within clinical trials.
A challenge to that ruling, brought by campaigners who said they were concerned for the safety and welfare of young trans people in the UK, failed in July when the high court ruled that the ban was lawful.
Dr Hilary Cass, who wrote the Cass review into children’s gender care and published her final report in April, described puberty blockers as “powerful drugs with unproven benefits and significant risks”.
She said: “That is why I recommended that they should only be prescribed following a multi-disciplinary assessment and within a research protocol. I support the government’s decision to continue restrictions on the dispensing of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria outside the NHS where these essential safeguards are not being provided.”
