"Gender identity service"

Thank you for sharing your comments with us. We aspire to provide outstanding services so your feedback is very important to us as it will help us to learn and improve. We’re going to follow this up with the team involved and we’ll be back in touch on this forum within 10 working days.

Dear gemmalou411,

Thank you for taking the time to post on this site, we are grateful for all feedback received.

It is really important to us that people who need to be seen are seen at the right time by the right professional.

Unfortunately, in line with other NHS Gender Services, the Leeds Gender Identity Service has experienced a rapid increase in referrals which has resulted in people having to wait for longer for appointments than we would usually plan for.

The service is working alongside local and national commissioners and has initiated a number of improvement actions. Those improvements have included recruiting additional staff; reviewing and streamlining the service users pathway and creating a new Gender Identity Outreach Worker programme which we will continue to monitor in terms of the impact these changes make to service user access and satisfaction.

In relation to you being seen by another member of staff. I'm really sorry if you were disappointed that the person you expected to see wasn't available; however it is our preference not to cancel appointments where a member of staff becomes unavailable as we know that people may already have had to wait quite a while. However, we will understand if individuals don't find this satisfactory and will of course make arrangements for people to be seen at a later date.

We are an improving service and I hope that some of the issues I've discussed today in response to your posting demonstrate that we have listened to your concerns and are working to make sure people are seen in a timely manner.

We would still be happy to investigate your concerns further if you don't feel that the issues you have raised have been addressed. You can do this by making direct contact with the Gender Identity Service, via emailing gid.lypft@nhs.net or calling 0113 8556346. Alternatively, the postal address is Gender Identity Service, Newsam Centre, Seacroft Hospital, Leeds LS14 6WP.

With kind regards