Hospitals record newborn babies’ ‘gender identity’ rather than their sex
Newborn babies have been given a ‘gender identity’ rather than sex in the records at leading NHS hospitals.
Midwives at King’s College Hospital and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital have only had the option of selecting the baby’s gender, rather than sex, on a new £450 million IT system when filling out forms about the baby’s birth.
Hospital bosses immediately apologised for the “unfortunate language” that had come as standard in the new US-made system and insisted the “error is being rectified”.
But women’s rights campaigners have said the excuse is “disingenuous” given the “years of detailing planning”, hospitals said had gone into the system.
‘Ludicrous’
A whistleblower told the Mail on Sunday: “The hospital discharge summary is an important document for the baby to receive the best care from the whole NHS team.
“But we are talking about newborn and very young babies here. What on earth has gender identity as a concept got to do with them? It’s ludicrous.”
The whistleblower added that there was a “climate of fear” among some midwives with staff encouraged to use terms like “birthing parent” and “chest-feeding” instead of “mother” and “breastfeeding”.
The new technology being used to record babies’ births is part of a US-created computer system called EPIC was rolled out across the London hospitals’ services more than seven weeks ago.
Cost of £450 million to taxpayers
It is set to be used by at least six other NHS trusts in England at a cost of £450 million to taxpayers over the next 15 years.
The discharge summaries contain vital information about the birth and the baby’s health, and are the start of their permanent NHS patient health record.
The forms are sent to GPs, health visitors and other hospitals for post-natal care.
Women’s rights campaigners said it was “scandalous” to “pretend” it was an oversight.
Maya Forstater, executive director of campaign group Sex Matters, said: “The response from NHS managers to blame a ‘system error’ is disingenuous at best and will do nothing to quell widespread disgust.
“Last month the hospitals said the system design had involved ‘years of detailed planning by hundreds of teams from both Trusts’ and that the launch had been mapped out ‘to the last detail’, so to pretend that the recording of anyone’s ‘gender identity’ - including that of babies and children - was an oversight is scandalous.
“The fact that staff members didn’t feel it safe to raise their concerns about a grossly flawed new process shows the extent of fear that now dominates NHS workplace environments thanks to gender identity indoctrination.”
‘Mess and confusion’
She added that Professor Alice Sulivan, who has been commissioned by the Government to review sex data in the public sector, needed to “sort out the mess and confusion across healthcare, education, tax and benefits, passports and the justice system instead of leaving individual agencies to decide not to record sex.”
Jenny Gamble, professor of midwifery at Coventry University, said: “Sex is not assigned at birth, that is delusional. A baby cannot have a gender identity, because it’s a baby. Gender identity is important later in life but it never erases the importance of sex.”
A spokesman for Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College Hospital said: “In line with national legal requirements, clinical staff entering the sex of a newborn baby in our new electronic health record system record this information in a field named ‘legal sex’.
“Unfortunately, an error in the system has led to discharge summary forms displaying this information under an incorrect heading of ‘gender identity’. This error is being rectified as quickly as possible, and we apologise for any confusion caused.”
