Standing Up for Trans Youth: A Statement from Anne Health
Anne Health’s Response to NHS England Guidance on Unregulated Providers – April 2025
In a move which is set to deepen an already devastating crisis for trans youth in the UK, NHS England's latest guidance, issued in April 2025, will leave many young trans+ people without essential GP oversight.
The guidance, which impacts shared care arrangements between GPs and providers like Anne Health, threatens GPs with legal ambiguity, warns them against compassion, and frames care as risk rather than relief.
Anne Health will continue to provide comprehensive support to trans youth including careful and ongoing blood testing, overseen and monitored by medical experts regulated in their country of residence.
At Anne Health, we are unwavering in our support for trans young people and their families. We are run by people with lived experience—parents of trans youth, trans and non-binary community members, cisgender advocates, and healthcare professionals—who have seen firsthand the harm that systemic neglect and political interference can cause. The reason Anne Health exists is because the NHS has failed trans people for years. That failure has only deepened with this direct attack on care for trans youth with the release of this guidance.
This move does not protect trans+ children; it opens them up to more harm by instructing GPs not just to step back—but to walk away. It is not a neutral decision—it is a political one. And we cannot stay silent.
In 2024, fewer than 100 young people were able to access puberty blockers through the NHS. Since then, not a single new patient has been identified for treatment. The closure of the Tavistock clinic, the yet-to-happen (and deeply unethical) trial programme, and now this guidance all point to one reality: healthcare for trans youth in the UK is being systematically dismantled. This leaves families - desperate to access proven healthcare for their loved ones - with no choice but to seek help outside the NHS.
The framing of our service as unregulated is disingenuous, to say the least. The medical professionals we work with are regulated, and clinical experts in trans healthcare in their countries. Our patients speak directly to their clinicians. Their monitoring, including that of the mandatory blood tests, is done by those same clinical experts.
At Anne Health, we will not walk away. We will continue to:
Follow the international clinical consensus that affirms the efficacy and safety of puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormone therapy.
Support young people and their families in accessing safe, ethical, affirming care when no one else will.
Center the voices and experiences of the trans youth we serve, and their families who love them, because they know what they need better than any bureaucratic system does.
Anne Health shouldn’t have to exist. In a just system, trans youth would receive care through the NHS, without fear, stigma, or delay. But while politics interferes with medicine, and as long as care is denied, we will be here.
Because trans youth deserve better.
Demand action from Wes Streeting
We’ve created an email template for you to share your concern with Secretary of State for Health & Social Care Wes Streeting. Please feel free to adapt it and share it.
For media inquiries or to learn more about our work, please contact Anne Health at hello@anne.health.