In an important article in the New Statesman – Health Bosses Failed to Act on NHS Clinic Prescribing Gender Drugs to Kids for Five Years – Hannah Barnes writes about the failure of the NHS authorities to act on concerns raised about the prescribing practices of Dr Sam Hall and the WellBN clinic in Brighton and concluded that the organisations meant to safeguard care for gender-questioning young people are not working as they should.
A joint NHS Sussex and NHSE investigation was announced in June because of concerns over the prescribing practices of Dr Sam Hall and the WellBN practice.
But as Barnes pointed out in her article there is abundant evidence that multiple health authorities, including the General Medical Council (GMC) and NHS England, as well as NHS Sussex have been aware of concerns relating to these same practices dating back at least five years. At both a national and local level, the NHS has known that WellBN has been prescribing outside of all NHS guidelines for young people, and yet no one has taken meaningful action.
The article lists a series of complaints made to the authorities (GMC and NHSE) that were ignored, or where no action was taken after an inadequate and superficial “investigation” that exonerated the practitioners. In March 2024, Hannah Barnes published details of Hall and WellBN’s prescribing of hormones to under-18s outside of NHS guidelines in her book, Time to Think. Despite being made aware of concerns, at no point during this period did NHS England place any restrictions on the actions of Hall or his colleagues.
The local NHS has also been aware of Brighton WellBN’s practice for years and condoned and allegedly supported it, while dismissing complaints and concerns raised by families. In fact in a letter seen by the New Statesman, sent by Hall and his fellow GP partners at WellBN to NHS Sussex, doctors say they have been “formally commissioned” by NHS Sussex to prescribe hormones to 16-year-olds and over since 2022. The letter, dated 15 April 2025, states that the WellBN team “have been initiating treatment for gender incongruence with full transparency and with your express knowledge to 16 [-year-olds] and over for the past 5 years”. Speaking to Trans Pride Brighton in July 2025, Hall said: “I’ve been doing [it] for the last five years with the full knowledge of everybody in the system… What’s changed? Nothing. I’m not doing anything different.”
As Barnes points out, what has changed is that the NHS was facing legal action. In a document seen by the New Statesman, dated 8 April 2025, NHSE told the Sussex Integrated Care Board (NHS Sussex) that it was their view that “the approach adopted by WellBN sits neither within the scope of a specialised [gender] service commissioned by NHS England” nor was it within the treatments offered under the [GP] General Medical Services contract. As a consequence, WellBN, of which Hall was one of three GP partners until his departure at the end of June 2025, “should be instructed to cease offering the prescription of exogenous hormones for gender incongruence” to 16- and 17-year-olds.
NHS Sussex have chosen to interpret NHS England’s instructions to cease offering hormones to 16 and 17 year olds in their own way and to allow the continued prescription for those already on them. The article quotes distraught parents seeing their children continue to be harmed by these hormones. In the recent court hearing, cited by Barnes, world experts on youth gender care Professor Riittakerttu Kaltiala and Professor Jovanna Dahlgren gave evidence about the serious risks and dangers of prescribing cross sex hormones to under 18s. This led to Wes Streeting calling an inquiry into private prescription of hormones to under 18s. While General Practice prescribing does not qualify as private prescribing, GPs are expected to abide by professional standards and not prescribe outside their competence, expertise and national guidance. They would be expected only to prescribe hormones as part of shared care agreements with specialist services, who themselves are duty bound to follow national guidance.
Given NHS Sussex’s history of collusion with potentially harmful prescribing practices, families and campaigners for child safeguarding in Brighton do not believe that NHS Sussex is capable of running an independent investigation and are calling on the Government to institute a genuinely independent investigation, as explained in this recently published blog by Rachael Cashman.
Hannah Barnes ends with these chilling words:
Whatever the outcome, should this investigation find that any child has been harmed as a result of WellBN’s medical approach to gender-questioning youth, none of the organisations responsible for protecting these young people and ensuring they receive safe care will be able to say it could not have been prevented. Not the NHS, not the GMC, nor the government. They were warned. Repeatedly. And did nothing.