Transgender people are waiting two and a half years for an NHS appointment

Transgender people are waiting up to two and a half years for an initial appointment on the NHS, it has been reported.

The average wait to be seen for a first consultation at NHS gender identity clinics after a GP referral is 18 months, but some patients are waiting even longer, the BBC said.

The longest delay is at Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Gender Clinic, where the current waiting time for an initial appointment is two and a half years, or 139 weeks.

The shortest waiting period is at Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust Gender Identity Service, but even there it takes almost a year – 51 weeks – to be seen.

Two years ago, NHS England said it wanted to bring waiting times for transgender consultations to below 18 weeks by 2018.

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NHS England told the BBC its providers are “working to expand treatment teams and reduce waiting times”.

It said “demand outstrips supply” and that it wants to “ensure that the first clinician the patient sees will be one that can complete a diagnostic assessment to start the treatment pathway”.

In London, once NHS facility, the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust: Gender Identity Clinic for Adults, reported an increase of 55.25% in referrals made between November 2016 and November 2017.

Ethan Evans, who lives in London, visited a psychologist in 2015 but had to wait nearly two years for a referral to go through.

“You’ve gone through the whole process of deciding that is what you are, you are transgender and then you have to wait a year and a half to two years for somebody else to go ‘yeah that’s right’,” Ethan told the BBC.

“It has taken a toll psychologically on me. The wait is so long and it is literally a life or death thing.”

Transgender support group the Beaumont Society called the waiting times “heartbreaking”.