PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Date: 12th April 2025
Our Duty Welcomes NHS England’s Firm Guidance Against Unregulated Providers of Hormonal Interventions for Children
Our Duty, the international group of parents committed to safeguarding children from the harms of gender identity ideology, welcomes the latest guidance from NHS England which provides unequivocal clarity: General Practitioners must not participate in any shared care agreements with unregulated providers supplying hormone interventions to children and young people under the age of 18.
This guidance, published in April 2025, identifies by name two prominent unregulated providers – GenderGP and Anne Trans Healthcare Ltd – whose operations fall outside the remit of UK healthcare regulation. NHS England explicitly warns primary care professionals that these entities continue to prescribe puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children in defiance of both Government legislation and the current NHS clinical commissioning policy.
“This guidance is a long-overdue statement of common sense and medical ethics,” said a spokesperson for Our Duty. “We welcome the explicit rejection of collaboration with unregulated overseas providers who have promoted the medicalisation of confused, vulnerable children—often with irreversible consequences.”
Key Points Our Duty Supports
The NHS guidance is comprehensive and offers several critical points that Our Duty fully endorses:
- Puberty Blockers are Not to be Prescribed Privately to Minors
NHS England confirms that it is a criminal offence for a healthcare professional to prescribe or dispense gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogues for the purpose of puberty suppression to a person under 18, unless that treatment was initiated before 3 June 2024. - GPs Must Refuse Requests for Shared Care Involving Exogenous Hormones
The guidance makes clear that GPs should not facilitate or monitor exogenous hormone (i.e., testosterone or oestrogen) prescriptions made by unregulated providers. These medications, when used to impersonate the opposite sex, carry significant risks including infertility, cardiovascular complications, and impaired bone health. - NHS Will Not Enter Into Shared Care with Private Providers
NHS Children and Young People’s Gender Services have confirmed they will not supervise or support endocrine interventions initiated by private providers, particularly when such interventions are contrary to NHS guidelines. - Safeguarding Is Paramount
GPs are reminded of their duty to initiate safeguarding protocols where children are exposed to risks from unregulated hormone treatment. The administration of off-label medications such as testosterone to prepubescent girls—as promoted by GenderGP—is cited as a matter of serious concern. - Explicit Condemnation of GenderGP
The guidance notes that GenderGP promotes testosterone treatment for natal girls as young as 8 and the use of raloxifene in children, despite acknowledging that it has not been tested in young people. It also references legal judgments that have found the clinic’s activities pose a “very significant concern” to the safety of patients. - Anne Trans Healthcare Also Implicated
This UK-registered entity with overseas clinicians is also unregulated. It offers puberty blockers “for individuals of all ages” and disclaims responsibility for the quality of medical care offered through its network. It too encourages shared care approaches that the NHS now advises GPs to refuse. - Cass Review Alignment, But Clinical Trial Must Be Abandoned
NHS England’s new guidance is consistent with the 2024 Cass Review, which concluded that the evidence base for hormonal interventions in children is weak and that care should prioritise psychological and psychosocial support over medicalisation. While the NHS, alongside the National Institute for Health and Care Research, has announced intentions to conduct a clinical trial on puberty suppression, Our Duty has consistently argued that subjecting children to experimental hormonal manipulation is unethical. We reiterate our firm opposition to such a trial and call for its complete abandonment.
Our Duty’s Position
Medical professionals in the UK now have clear, authoritative guidance confirming what many concerned parents and detransitioners have long argued: that the medical transition of children, especially via unregulated providers, is unethical, unsafe, and scientifically unsupported. NHS England has now accepted that the risks are too high and the evidence too poor to justify such treatments outside of a strictly controlled clinical trial.
We urge all General Practitioners, educators, mental health professionals, and policymakers to treat any ongoing access to unregulated hormonal treatments for children as a safeguarding concern. We also call for robust enforcement to prevent these providers from continuing to operate with impunity, and for tighter legislation to protect vulnerable minors from predatory medical practices disguised as ‘affirming care’.
Our Duty will continue to advocate for the safety and health of children over the demands of gender ideologues. Reality matters. Safeguarding matters. This guidance is a critical step forward.
For further comment or interview requests, please contact:
info@ourduty.group
https://ourduty.group
ANNEX: KEY STATEMENTS FROM NHS GUIDANCE AND ASSOCIATED AUTHORITIES
1. Cass Review (April 2024)
- “The Review proposes a new and fundamentally different model of care that is less reliant on medical intervention and focused more on psychosocial and psychological support.”
- “It understands and shares the concerns about the use of unregulated medications and of providers that are not regulated within the UK.”
- “Any clinician who ascertains that a young person is being given drugs from an unregulated source should make the young person and their family aware of the risks.”
2. NHS England Guidance (April 2025)
- “A GP must refuse to support the private prescribing or supply of GnRH analogues.”
- “A GP should refuse to support an unregulated provider in the prescribing or supply of alternative medications that may be used to suppress pubertal development.”
- “Children, young people and their families are strongly discouraged from sourcing puberty suppressing or gender affirming hormones from unregulated sources.”
- “Where the young person or family decide to continue with the medication contrary to the GP’s advice, the GP should arrange for a final set of test results to be sent to the provider that is prescribing… The GP should consider the individual’s need for further professional support.”
3. Judgment of the President of the Family Division, High Court (May 2024)
(Re J (Transgender: Puberty Blocker and Hormone Replacement Therapy) [2024] EWHC 922 (Fam))
“There must be very significant concern about the prospect of a young person… accessing cross-hormone treatment from any off-shore, online, unregulated private clinic… I would urge any other court faced with a case involving GenderGP to proceed with extreme caution…”
