PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
(24 March 2025)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of mandating changes to NHS systems to ensure that it is possible to update the gender marker associated with an NHS number.

Asked by:
Pippa Heylings (Liberal Democrat)

Sex and gender identity are not always the same thing, and it is important for patients that we record both accurately. On 20 March 2025, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care instructed the health service to immediately suspend applications for National Health Service number changes for under 18 year olds, to safeguard children.

Taking such action does not prevent the NHS from recording, recognising, and respecting trans people’s gender identity. General practitioners are currently able to rename a patient and manually input preferred pronouns and expressed gender in free text without affecting the formal marker.

Answered by:
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