‘Does the patient have a penis or a vagina?’ The ‘nonsense’ new transgender form the NHS makes doctors fill out
Doctors are being asked to tick whether patients have a penis or vagina under a new NHS medical form being rolled out at some hospitals.
Medics are being faced with “nonsensical” forms asking for a patient’s “organ inventory” at NHS hospitals using a new £450 million IT system.
The new “sexual orientation and gender identity form” makes up part of someone’s Electronic Patient Record (EPR) on the new system, regardless of the care or relevance to any treatment they are receiving.
It asks for information around a patient’s sexual orientation, gender, sex assigned at birth, preferred pronouns, if they have transitioned, to what extent, and what future plans they have, if any, to change gender.
The medical forms then go on to ask staff to fill in “organs the patient currently has”, “organs present at birth”, “organs surgically enhanced or constructed” and “organs hormonally enhanced”.
Possible list of organs to add
Under each of the sections there are a list of possible organs to add, including a penis, vagina, uterus, cervix, breasts, prostate, testes, and ovaries.
Healthcare staff then have to click “add” on the relevant organs to specify which genitalia the patient has, and at which point.
But doctors have told the Telegraph the forms are “insane” and “nonsensical” from a medical or scientific perspective.
One doctor described the organ inventory as “pretty bizarre”, adding: “It is nonsensical what they have written.”
The forms also provide default answers to questions. For example around gender identity, a patient will be by default labelled as “cisgender”, a term used to describe someone who identifies as the sex they were born as.
‘Automatically cisgender’
“People are automatically cisgender unless they are classed as trans, even though most people in a hospital wouldn’t know what that means, let alone being classified as something,” a staff member familiar with the new system said.
Concerns have also been raised around the fact patients and taxpayers are not aware about the amount of money being spent on the system.
“The issue is that it is integrated into a multi-million pound electronic patient record system on the NHS but people don’t know about it,” they said.
The forms are part of a new American software called Epic, which was rolled out at King’s College Hospital and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital at the start of October.
It is also being used by Frimley Health NHS Trust, south London, and Maudsley NHS Trust and several other hospitals across London and England at a cost of £450 million over 15 years.
It is the same US technology that it transpired was requesting midwives to record the gender identity of a baby at birth, rather than its sex.
Hospital bosses have already apologised for that system claiming it was an “error” and that the “unfortunate language” would be “rectified as quickly as possible”.
Medical forms widespread
However, it has now transpired that these types of medical forms are widespread across all electronic patient records.
Women’s rights campaigners have blamed activists for trying to impose it “by stealth”.
Helen Joyce, author and director of advocacy at Sex Matters, said the “anti-scientific fringe ideology has been imported wholesale from America”.
“Activists within the NHS have attempted to impose it on the UK’s healthcare system by stealth,” she said.
“What they’re trying to do is incredibly dangerous, and will damage patient care. It’s also anti-democratic, since it’s being presented to NHS users as a fait accompli.”
A spokesman from Epic Systems, the software manufacturer, said: “The Epic EPR is capable of recording both legal sex and gender identity. Documentation templates are configured locally in each hospital’s Epic system.”
