NHS England
NHS England is the organisation that oversees public healthcare in England and commissions specialised care, including gender care for children and young people. In March 2025, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that NHS England would be abolished and merged into the Department of Health (source).
The main article on this subject is Gender Care in the United Kingdom.
What you can find
The website contains policy documents, clinical policies for commissioning care, consultations and news.
Why it is on this list
In autumn 2020, NHS England commissioned the Cass Review (source). In March 2024, the NHS stopped routinely prescribing puberty blockers to people under 18 (source). There is a separate article on cross-sex hormones: NHS England: no more routine cross-sex hormones under 18. The Tavistock gender clinic (GIDS) closed on 31 March 2024; the new regional services opened on 1 April 2024 (source). See the overview of policy by country for more information.
Organisation and abolition
NHS England was established on 31 October 2011 as a special health authority and became an independent public body on 1 April 2013. It was initially called the NHS Commissioning Board. Among others, NHS Improvement and the bodies previously merged into it have been absorbed into the organisation. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced its abolition on 13 March 2025. The abolition process was expected to take two years (source). For readers, this means that policy documents on gender care may eventually be housed under the department and that website addresses may change.
Implementation of the Cass Review
The review was commissioned in autumn 2020 and given to paediatrician Hilary Cass. The interim report was published in March 2022 and the final report on 10 April 2024. In April 2024, two new services opened in North West England and London. From 1 September 2024, new referrals must go through NHS secondary care, that is mental health or paediatric services (source). Research into puberty blockers is being conducted through the Pathways study, with Emily Simonoff of King's College London as chief investigator (source). In February 2026 the medicines regulator MHRA raised concerns about the study and preparations were temporarily halted; in June 2026 the MHRA approved an amended protocol, including minimum ages for participation. Recruitment was not due to begin before 1 August 2026 because of legal proceedings (source). On 31 July 2026 the High Court dismissed a legal challenge to the approval (source); see the report on the puberty blocker trial involving 226 children. In April 2024 NHS England also announced a review of the adult gender clinics (source).
How to assess this source
NHS England's documents are primary sources: they show what was actually decided. The supporting evidence can be found in the evidence reviews by NICE and in the systematic reviews by the University of York. The policy is not without controversy; critics, including WPATH and researchers from Yale, have raised objections to the Cass Review.