We are committed to providing you with the highest standard of care and ensuring your safety and wellbeing. In line with this, our surgery will no longer be accepting shared care agreements for gender incongruence medication.
The key reasons for this decision are:
- Clinical expertise and safety concerns
The treatment of gender incongruence requires specialist knowledge for safe prescribing and monitoring. Our GPs do not have the necessary expertise to manage these medications independently.
Ensuring patient safety is our top priority, and we believe that gender incongruence medications should be managed by specialists who can take full clinical responsibility. - Capacity and workload
The increasing demand on general practice has made it challenging to accommodate shared care arrangements without compromising the care of other patients.
By focusing on our core responsibilities, we can ensure that we provide timely and effective care to all our patients. - Lack of support and resources
Shared care arrangements often lack the necessary support and resources for GPs to manage gender incongruence medications and investigations safely.
Without adequate support, there is a risk of miscommunication and potential harm to patients.
What does this mean for you?
Your gender incongruence medication and monitoring will need to be managed by a specialist. As and when we receive requests to enter “shared care agreements” with specialists, we will inform them that we will not be able to accept this agreement. We recommend contacting your specialist or the clinic where your medication was initiated to discuss your ongoing care, we will also write back to them informing them of this decision.
Your health and wellbeing remain of the utmost importance, and whilst we understand that this may be frustrating, by ensuring that gender incongruence treatments are managed by specialists, we can continue to provide you with the safest and most effective care.