THE NHS will conduct clinical trials to assess the potential benefits and harms of puberty blockers, Health Secretary Wes Streeting says.

Sir Keir Starmer welcomed Monday’s High Court ruling that an emergency ban on puberty blockers, which suppress the production of sex hormones to delay puberty, was lawful. The ban, imposed by former health secretary Victoria Atkin, had been challenged in court by the TransActual campaign and a young person who cannot be named.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters: “The government welcomes the court’s decision. Children’s healthcare must be evidence-led.

“The Cass Review [into gender identity services, published in April] was clear that there was insufficient evidence that puberty blockers are safe and effective for children with gender dysphoria and gender incongruence. Therefore, we must act cautiously.”

Mr Streeting said he was working with NHS England to “improve children’s gender identity services, and to set up a clinical trial to establish the evidence on puberty blockers.”

Research by the University of York found evidence “severely lacking” on the impact of puberty blockers and hormone treatments, prompting the last government’s emergency ban.

However, last month the TUC LGBT+ conference passed a motion committing to work with trans-led organisations to “resist the Cass report recommendations” and to press government for “an affirming approach to trans healthcare that centres trans people’s self-identified needs,” an approach the Cass Review cautioned risked “medicalising children and young people whose multiple
other difficulties are manifesting through gender confusion and gender-related distress.”