Trans Healthcare - Report

In 2021, Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust began operating CMAGIC (Cheshire and Merseyside Adult Gender Identity Collaborative), a new gender incongruence pilot for adults. It is one of three NHS pilot schemes in England, based in primary care and sexual health services, looking at improving access to gender identity healthcare.

Here at Healthwatch Liverpool, we were interested in learning more about CMAGIC as a new local health service for transgender people. We have previously received feedback from trans patients locally about the difficulties of accessing gender-affirming care, including long waiting times to be seen by an NHS Gender Incongruence Clinic (GIC) and difficulties accessing a GIC referral.  

As CMAGIC and the other gender incongruence pilot sites are being evaluated by NHS England, we did not want to duplicate any evaluation of this service. However, we felt that it would still be worthwhile to find out what trans patients' experiences of health and care are like in Liverpool, as there is little published information about this. 

In 2022, we ran an online survey, and held interviews to gather people’s feedback and experiences. We chose to hold interviews to get some more in-depth feedback from people. We asked people about their experiences of accessing gender-affirming care, including medical transition (medical procedures to affirm someone’s gender, including hormone replacement and surgical procedures), as well as accessing general healthcare (such as routine GP or hospital appointments, A&E visits, etc). We used our interviews to create four case studies, alongside a short report highlighting issues people told us about.

The feedback we received highlighted a number of key areas where care for trans patients could be improved. These include:

• Lengthy waiting lists for gender affirming care;

• Communication from the NHS;

• Inconsistencies in GP treatment; and

• Dignified and respectful treatment from staff.

Read all our findings, and our four case studies, in our report.