#NHS Scotland

[cllightning81]

My Story

I'm not sharing this for sympathy more just to educate people on the fact that they never know what someone is going through. Also, because people never share these types of stories

For ten years (taking me back to my single digit childhood 😭), I have had chronic back pain that's been left undiagnosed for these ten years and increasing day by day.

Physical signs of swelling and constant pain with leg weakness occasionally nowadays.

It started off with local general practitioners (GP's) telling me it was just growing pains because I was so young. Pain kept up until my double-digit years, when I continued to go back to my GP until they told me it was a pulled muscle into my early teens I continued to go to my GP who told me to go to physio privately.

My family was in no place to afford this, but thankfully, we knew some private physios who would do it for free because they were family friends.

The first private physio did some acupuncture, which eventually helped, but then the pain came back and told me it was a pinched nerve. The second private physio told me it was a pulled muscle again.

Back to my GP nearing my adulthood (according to Scottish law) they sent me to a NHS physio who did all the basic information, felt my spine -detected scoliosis-, gave me exercises and referred me to rheumatology by this time I was on a painkiller called "Naproxen"

A year later. Finally got my rheumatology appointment met with the consultant who took my information, felt my spine -detected scoliosis, hyperflexibility in my cervical and thoracic spine-, promised he'd do something about this, sent me for bloods and X-rays.

Had my bloods taken. No sign of inflammation or rheumatoid arthritis.

Nearly 3 months later, I got my x-ray results. There is nothing there time for an MRI.

2 weeks later, I had my MRI. Waited 5 further months on my results. Irregularities in my sacrioloc joint but no inflammation.

At this point, I've been through two different types of painkillers. Diclofenac and co-codamol. In my teen years. 3 different types

It's time for another x-ray. It shows nothing. Found this out the day I got accepted into my dream uni for my dream course ( I didn't get the grades. However, I'm just doing a different course at my dream university)

Went back to my GP after finding this out for the trainee GP to tell a teenage me that I "might need a hip replacement in the future." Left annoyed and upset.

Started using kinesiology tape from a suggestion from Google for back pain. It helps a little, but I still have major flare-ups.

Over the past months now in my adult years (😭😭), I've been experiencing hip pain where I've been unable to lie, sit, or put any weight on my right hip. The hip is on the same side as my back pain.

GP receptionist tells me it's not an emergency even though it is causing me to lose feeling in my right leg and that the first appointment is in a week and a half.

Appointment rolls around, and I've got another trainee who dismisses me as normal. I mentioned I thought it might be linked to my back, and the whole appointment moved from my hip to my back.

At the end of the appointment, she tells me, "Surgeons won't do anything, so I won't refer you there. Rheumatology will refer you back because you were there recently, and more X-rays and MRIs are unnecessary radiation, so we won't do that"

IM STUDYING TO BECOME A RADIOGRAPHER I KNOW THE RISKS. Her patient centred careness was thrown out the window during this appointment.

So she tells me she'll speak to her supervisor about giving my lidocaine patches to help with the pain.

Two hours later I get a phone call from her where she repeats everything she said at the appointment and follows it up with "We're going to give you more diclofenac and lanzoprazole" to which I reply "I already have lots of that. I take it constantly, " but they have continued to give me it.

After I hung up, I explained everything to my mum, and I couldn't hold back the tears. The way the NHS treats young people in constant pain is ridiculous. I'm not being listened to.

All they see and have ever seen is my age. Never the condition. And now studying radiography, and I've requested all of my medical records and images because I need to know.

I've never been in so much pain physically and mentally, but here I am. I'm struggling so much, and no one's listening to me from the medical professions.

What do I need to do to get them to listen?

[ukftm]

NHS Scotland GICs Self-Referral Information

For those that are concerned about an apparent post that has said that NHS Scotland GICs won’t be accepting self-referrals anymore, we will not be positing any information about this until it comes directly from the NHS.

A few things to consider with information like this:

1) It’s important to not panic about information that comes from sources that are NOT the NHS.

2) It’s also important to realise that if NHS Scotland were making changes to a clinics referral system, this information would not come from NHS England.

3) If a Scottish GIC have said they are stopping accepting self-referrals, this would have little impact and would not be something to worry about. Getting a referral from your GP should not be a problem and GPs cannot refuse to put a referral in.

4) Many GICs do not accept self-referrals so this once again will not cause a negative impact and should be looked upon as a positive step in ensuring that everyone is seen in proper turn.

If we hear anything about this from the NHS, we will update you.

[jenniferdiazisatransgirl]

Trans Healthcare Ban

So the NHS England last year decided it was going to close the Tavistock and Portman Gender Identity Development Service in London. For those who don’t know, this is the under 18s service for trans people in England and I believe Wales.

They are meant to replacing it with a more localised service and in response to the Cass Review, they are also looking at their policies on how they will treat trans young people. A lot of it has been draft policies so far. But the draft policies have included;

- Discouraging social transition including using gender affirming names and pronouns.

- Giving the child therapy to assess any and all possible causes of that child “thinking” they are transgender beyond actually being transgender. (And just to be clear, I have no objection giving a trans child therapy, but there is a clear political objective here).

- Reporting parents to social services if they decide to seek private gender affirming care for their child.

- Stopping hormone blockers and HRT for under 18s.

Not sure quite how much of this has been enforced yet, but the NHS England announced on the 9th June it is removing hormone blockers and HRT from all under 18s in the future, except under exceptional circumstances or if the parents agree for the child to take part in a study on the effects of hormone blockers. In its reasoning the NHS England cited hormone blockers as being reversible but they are unsure of the impacts on mental health.

The NHS England or presumably, the UK Government is now attempting to pressure the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland to do the same thing.

And here is the thing, the NHS does not gives hormone blockers and hormones out easily even to adults. It took me 2 years of appointments from when I turned 18 to be given hormone blockers and HRT. And literally, the day they told me they were going to give me those was 2 days before my 20th birthday. I had decided at that point, I had already lost all of my childhood, I’d lost my teen years and if I was going to lose any more of my life I was going to lose it on my terms. Basically, I was planning to kill myself on my 20th birthday. The only thing that stopped me was being told that 2 days before.

With trans youths, my understanding of the NHS system is, it is a rarity they prescribe hormone blockers and near impossible to get HRT prior to the age of 16. So they are going to make a fucked up system even more fucked up. And that’s not even taking into consideration the waiting list that in some places are now over half a decade.

It should be noted, this doesn’t apply to under 18s who were already placed on hormone blockers and HRT by the Tavistock and Portman. It is still disgusting regardless though.

And given the UK Government we have at present, the political motivations are clear as day here. And the idea that these treatments are experimental and we don’t know the effects is BS. The Tavistock and Portman was opened in 1989. 34 years of providing medical care and we supposedly don’t know the effects of said medical care yet. Absolute BS and they know it.

There are a lot of institutions in the this country that are supposed to remain political neutral regardless of the government of the day. The NHS and the Equality and Human Rights Commission are two of those, but both of those have been politically captured by this government and its agenda against trans people.

[realpeterabell]

A contest of liars

John Swinney might just as well have declared that if we all vote for his team, he will pull £1.6bn from his backside.

When is a plan not a plan? When it is in an election manifesto! Especially, it would seem, an SNP manifesto. The party loyalists will greet the announcement of a ‘plan’ to increase healthcare spending by £1.6bn with ecstatic cheering and hagiographic praise for their glorious leader. More thoughtful people will read on. Reading on, the thoughtful person discovers that the ‘plan’ is nothing more…

[littleraeofsunshineda]

Anyone in the UK:

Big survey on the NHS has been launched.

I am BEGGING people to go on and opine loudly that they need to get their shit together on retaining staff by any means necessary.

All their plans are great (yes we obv need a single system for records wtf is this 1990) but literally nowhere do they acknowledge that everything from "care in the community" to "preventing instead of treating" is currently in the fucking pits because

THERE ARE NO FUCKING STAFF OR SPECIALIST TRAINING PLACES

change.nhs.uk

please fucking do it

[sztupy]

Display at the local children's hospital

[princesscatherineblog]

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge host a drive-in cinema event for NHS staff at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, Scotland on May 26, 2021, during their week long visit to Scotland. 

[mysharona1987]

[allthegeopolitics]

Scotland’s only youth gender clinic has paused prescribing puberty blockers for under-18s. Prescriptions for under-18s currently on the waiting list are to be blocked following the decision by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC). The Sandyford Clinic in Glasgow also said that patients aged 16 and up would no longer receive hormone treatments until they are 18. The decision comes following a similar decision by NHS England last month after just over a week after the publication of the Cass report last week, which made recommendations to change NHS England’s approach to trans youth care.

Continue Reading

[totallyhussein-blog]

After clapping for the carers during lockdown, what now for the NHS?

As Keir Starmer is set to warn that "things will get worse" in the UK before they get better, Channel 4 have highlighted reports of care workers being ripped off, abused and exploited here in the UK.

The Royal College of Nursing is calling on the government to launch a full and urgent investigation, and to work on policy solutions to eradicate these practices. Here is the report.

And despite paying income tax and national insurance, NHS nurses from overseas are being “pushed into poverty” because of rules that deprive many people coming to work in the UK of welfare benefits for five years after they arrive.

A Royal College of Nursing report, based on a survey of more than 3,000 foreign nurses, warns that the policy “punishes” people for coming to work in the UK and is “risking a mass exodus of international nursing staff” from the NHS.

[georgies-ftts]

fucking LOVE the nhs

just walk into the walk-in (as you’re meant to) tell them that i am incredibly diseased (which i am) and then i’ll have a wee sit for 20 minutes and then some lady will yell my name across a room take me into a wee back room (not in a noncey way im sure) and have a cheeky look at me, tell me that i am infact incredibly diseased (which i am) and then they’ll send me on my merry way with a prescription (cheeky antibiotics to cure the diseases that riddle me like a victorian infant that won’t survive the winter)

fucking brilliant

[bluebison2]

Make no mistake, Westminster blocking the Scottish gender reform bill is not about culture wars for the tories (that’s just an added benefit). It is almost solely about taking power away from the devolved nations. If they can get away with this then they can start to block other devolved matters, and in several years time they can start to say...’well why do we even have devolved nations they don’t matter as we do most of the work anyway’ And pretty soon the Tories get to have their main goal of running the entire place. Whatever you think about the gender reform act, you need to recognise that this is worrying for democracy here in the Uk and that it will take time to play out fully.

[themistressofdolls]

I already knew the United Kingdom was a mess but this was really deflating to watch.

[commonpigeon]

scotland and england having different nhs services is super annoying. except for the free prescriptions in scotland

[coochiequeens]

WTF Scotland?

A prisoner who identifies as transgender is requesting taxpayer-funded “gender affirming care” through the National Healthcare System (NHS) in Scotland. Paris Green, 30, whose birth name is Peter Laing, is currently being held in the women’s section of Edinburgh’s Saughton jail, where he is serving a life sentence for murder. 

Green is seeking to become the first prisoner in the United Kingdom to have the full procedure euphemistically referred to as ‘sex reassignment surgery’ on the public dime.

In 2013, Green was one of three men found guilty for the torture and murder of 45-year-old Robert Shankland. 

Green, along with two other men had invited Shankland, 45, to a party at Green’s residence in Glenrothes, Fife, in March of 2013. Once Shankland arrived, the men tied him up, then beat and tortured him for seven hours. Shankland was also sexually assaulted him with a rolling pin before he died as a result of either suffocation or blunt force injuries. The three killers then sold Shankland’s mobile phone for £26 and spent the money on sandwiches, which they ate at the scene of the crime as Shankland took his final breaths.

When sentencing the trio at the High Court in Glasgow, Judge John Morris called the crime “utterly depraved,” stating: “This was a particularly gruesome murder which effectively involved the torture of your victim over many hours. It beggars belief that you could act towards another human being in this way.”

Upon conviction, Green was initially detained at Cornton Vale women’s prison, but was transferred to the women’s ward in Edinburgh after only five weeks in detention because he repeatedly engaged in sexual relations with the female inmates.

Speaking to the Daily Record from jail, Green said that he regretted committing the “inexcusable” crime and insisted that undergoing genital surgery would help him become rehabilitated. He blamed his “anger” over his identity for his violent actions and said he felt disgusted by his genitals.

“Nothing is more important to me than becoming fully the person I should have been. I want to feel comfortable in the shower rather than feeling repulsed. Having male genitalia feels wrong.”

When asked why he had committed the brutal murder, he said: “It was inexcusable – all I can say is I had a really awful childhood and was totally messed up. I was carrying a lot of anger inside me even before I realized I should have been a woman and that made me more angry.”

Green initially began taking hormones in 2011, and met with a surgeon at Nuffield Clinic in Brighton in 2020. But the medical professional delayed the procedure after expressing concern for the safety of other patients on the ward due to the nature of Green’s sadistic crime

Shankland’s family members have for several years campaigned against Green being housed with women, as well as being permitted to receive state-funded medical interventions. In 2018, the estimated cost to taxpayers for Green’s surgery was said to be approximately £20,000. Over the past decade, relatives of the victim have launched petitions and contacted representatives to state their case. 

One petition, created by Leigh Robb, states: “My uncle Robert was brutally murdered by three people who were all sentenced to a minimum of 18 years. Problem is that one of his murderers is a man who likes to be known as a woman ‘Paris’. This man is set to undergo full gender realignment on the NHS payed [sic] for by us tax payers. He should not be rewarded for this brutal crime and should serve his time in a man’s prison. Please help me get some justice for my uncle and our family.”

Family members spoke with The Daily Mail in 2018, detailing their objections to Green’s placement in a woman’s prison and to his potential surgery. Pauline Bell, Shankland’s sister, said, “[He] should not be getting the operation on the NHS. It’s not lifesaving treatment. [He] took ­somebody’s life away and destroyed a family.”

Shankland’s mother, Mary, told the press, “Green doesn’t know the meaning of the word remorse. [He] shouldn’t get the operation, especially when so many people need vital treatment on the NHS – and they’re not getting it. But the authorities are jumping through hoops for him.”

Shankland’s family also set up a Facebook page, Justice for Robert Shankland, where they shared updates and attempted to gain support for their efforts.

On one post from 2013, a woman who claims to have been housed in Cornton Vale with Green during the five-week period he was held there commented in support of the victim’s family, saying that the convicted murderer told her how he had committed the grotesque slaying. She also claimed that Green threatened to kill himself should he be sentenced to life in prison.

Using a mixture of both masculine and feminine pronouns, she said that Green was “vile to the core” and that he selectively took hormones, like a “game” he was playing with the staff at the women’s prison. “It’s always going to be [a] game to Paris. I can’t ever forget. I hate [him] with a passion,” the former inmate wrote.

Another former prisoner detained with Green similarly remarked: “When I first went in [he] looked, talked and acted like a woman. But [he] had a spell where [his] behavior changed. It seemed [he] was having doubts, had stopped taking the hormones and was growing facial hair again. [He] was also sexually active and everyone knew about it. [He] had at least one girlfriend.’

Still another anonymous insider told the media that Green was notorious for having sexual relations with female inmates, adding: “He didn’t seem to be acting much like a woman to me.”

At the end of January, following a slew of violent male criminals claiming to identify as women and some requesting housing in the women’s estate, the UK Ministry of Justice updated its transgender prisoner policy. The new framework restricts male inmates with intact genitalia, or those who have been convicted of a sexual offense, from being placed in women’s prisons. In February, the Scottish Prison Service confirmed that newly convicted or remanded prison inmates will initially be placed in jails according to their sex at birth.

Speaking with the Daily Record, Dr. Kate Coleman of the campaign group Keep Prisons Single Sex, said, “Green, who is serving a sentence for torture and murder, would, under the new Ministry of Justice policy, be held in the male estate. We hope the SPS [Scottish Prison Service] will similarly place the safety of women at the center of their revised policy when the policy is finally released.”

A report from The Times in 2018 revealed that a senior official of the Scottish Prison Service, Gordon Pike, who was one of those responsible for its “gender identity and gender reassignment policy,” would turn out to be a sex offender himself, having hoarded 22,000 indecent pictures of children.

By Genevieve Gluck

Genevieve is the Co-Founder of Reduxx, and the outlet's Chief Investigative Journalist with a focused interest in pornography, sexual predators, and fetish subcultures. She is the creator of the podcast Women's Voices, which features news commentary and interviews regarding women's rights.

Isla Bryson was convicted in January of raping two women in 2016 and 2019 

Prosecutors said 31-year-old, who still has a penis, 'preyed' on vulnerable women

Sex beast's lawyers recieved a total of £30,428.23 from Scottish Legal Aid Board

A trans double rapist received more than £30,000 of taxpayers cash to mount a defence - while she was initially sent to a womens prison.

Isla Bryson, 31, was convicted in January of raping two women: one in Clydebank in 2016 and one in Drumchapel, Glasgow, in 2019.

The case sparked an uproar after Bryson was initially housed in an all-female prison before being moved to the male estate following the outcry.  see rest of article

[wild-at-mind]

Just listened to the new episode of Tortoise’s Slow Newscast about Gender GP and it’s sooooo bad. Maybe I should have known better than to bother with it, but I’ve enjoyed their non-gender related stuff. I also know at least one person who uses Gender GP, and I separately have been hearing from an FTM support group I’m in that a lot of NHS trusts are no longer willing to do shared care with Gender GP while still doing it with other similar services. I had hoped maybe it would shed some light on why that might be, because even though trans healthcare is vital it’s still important that it be done ethically and held to the same standards as other healthcare. But no, instead it was basically a referendum on whether medical transition is good/bad. Again. Fucks sake.

(For non-UK people, Gender GP are a private service for transition related healthcare but they can, or have in the past, worked with the NHS to provide shared care e.g. blood tests for HRT monitoring. It is needed because it’s a very, very, very long drawn out and difficult process to access NHS transition care.) The podcast’s thesis was that the founder of Gender GP (a cis GP named Helen Webberley) is not practicing ethical healthcare because there isn’t enough assessment before providing HRT. They do treat children but the majority of their customers are adults. However you can guess which demographic was focused on. No children or adults who had undergone treatment with Gender GP were interviewed. There was a suggestion from the interviewer that maybe Helen Webberley is y’know a little bit ditzy, naive as hell of course, but also isn’t she bad for making money out of this? In this way she is juxtaposed against the NHS, which is the Good and Right way to transition, because they don’t profit off trans kids I guess. This argument stops working in any country that doesn’t have free at point of use healthcare of any kind, but never mind that. Also the podcast to its credit acknowledges several times that there are no currently practicing NHS gender clinics in the UK, and that this is a problem. But that’s about all we get in that department. There’s a waiting list, but no clinics. That list gets longer and longer. It’s so fucked up.

I would argue that the podcast is sceptical about the entire concept of being transgender, and I wonder if they even realise this about themselves. Two mothers of trans sons are interviewed, one who used Gender GP and one who accessed black market hormones. The first mother says that Gender GP ruined her child. But she was still referring to her child as her daughter and using she/her. You would think that if medical transition was the only concern, the mother would have been fine with the social and 100% reversable changes in pronouns and name. I know it’s hard for someone who has known you their whole life as one name and set of pronouns to remember at first, but this was different, she just hadn’t done anything. Without saying it out loud she was clearly waiting for it all to blow over, and not even considering that it might not. Meanwhile the child’s father (they were divorced) is helping the child access Gender GP, which can’t have helped matters. The mother sadly laments how Gender GP tore her family apart. The 2nd mother was worried about her child accessing black market hormones and using home syringes. This is a valid worry. However she also referred to her child purely as daughter, she/her and actively aschewed his new name. I don’t even know why she was interviewed as her son wasn’t using Gender GP, and this wasn’t a perspective about what Gender GP was clearly designed to be- a safer option in between black market hormones and the endless wait for the NHS. It was very clear she was even more ‘wait for it to blow over’ than the first interviewee. She spoke with apparent disgust (though to be fair was voiced by an actor who may have been hamming it up a bit) that since socially transitioning at school her child was suddenly really popular and was liked by many people he wasn’t before, and they all loved using his new name....that part felt especially weird, like she was angry that her child was being called a name he preferred by his friends. It’s not the first time I’ve heard of parents alluding to children coming out as trans at school to become popular. I read an article where a parent was relaying what their child had said, where apparently their classmate came out as trans in assembly and everybody clapped. The idea that there might be other factors involved, such as novelty that will wear off for the classmates, the classroom social standing of the child in question, or even in the case of the 2nd podcast interviewee’s son, increased confidence post coming out making him more sociable, was ignored. I do understand that this is a relatively new area of medicine without much long term data to draw on. However all types of healthcare has to start somewhere, and I wouldn’t have thought that the fear of an army of angry and betrayed detransitioners one day (which the interviewer was clearly disappointed that Webberley had never seen) should hold back progress. There are older adults who transitioned as children out in the world. On tumblr almost a decade ago I remember young trans guys in parts of the US accessing hormones through informed consent clinics, to much hand wringing from certain reactionary internet circles-see if you can contact those people. How are they doing?

There is so much more I could talk about but I have to stop there or I’ll go on all night. Edited to add: this should not be interpreted as a defence of Helen Webberley, only as a condemnation of the podcast episode’s framing of the concept of gender services that don’t require stringent assessment as very dangerous and scary and automatically malpractice. There’s a reason why I listened in the first place- because I had heard not great things about Gender GP. Sadly I didn’t get a look at its problems and its founder’s problems, I got yet another highly biased condemnation of the entire concept of transness with way too much airtime for parents who don’t believe their teenage children have their own internal selves.

Edit again: I understand now what the podcast was saying about clinics- there are currently no gender clinics in England that treat children. There are a few in the country that treat adults over 18, and the waiting lists are really long but at least you can refer to one in any region. My referral was for Nottingham even though I’m in the south as it currently has the shortest waiting list on the tracker.