GP who gave puberty blockers to children nominated for award

As reported by The Times, a doctor who prescribed puberty blockers to children as young as 12 has been nominated for an ITV-backed award which recognises positive role model for LGBT individuals

Dr Helen Webberley, 54, who was allowed to practise medicine again this year after the High Court quashed a misconduct ruling against her, has been selected by the National Diversity Awards.

The founder of the GenderGP website, an online clinic for transgender patients, Webberley was found to have committed serious misconduct by a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) panel in 2022.

She was issued with a two-month suspension after being accused of failing to alert one of her teenage patients to the impact of puberty blockers on fertility. However a High Court judge agreed with Webberley that the tribunal had made errors and concluded that its determination was wrong.

Her appeal was granted and her suspension was quashed, leaving her free to practise. Separately, her husband and fellow GP, Michael Webberley, with whom she ran GenderGP, was struck off the medical register by the MPTS in May last year.

It ruled that he had been reckless in wrongly prescribing puberty blockers to a transgender nine-year-old child after a ten-minute chat on Skype.

His treatment of 24 patients was deemed a “catalogue of failings” between February 2017 and June 2019, the tribunal found.

Welcoming her nomination for the award, Webberley, who worked as a GP in south Wales before setting up her online business, referred to her recent legal battles with the medical regulator.

She said: “I have faced far too many courts and tribunals and each time I have simply told the truth. Since 2015, I have faced enormous uphill battles that tried to prevent me from creating services that allow trans people to access healthcare that suits them.

“I have cried, laughed, screamed and shouted, but every day I have worked towards this one single mission — allow transgender people to live their best lives. End of story!”

Helen Joyce, director of the campaign group Sex Matters, told The Times: “She is literally the last person I would give an award to. We know that child gender medicine puts children on a path to sterility. What the hell is somebody thinking giving a diversity award to her? It is totally inappropriate.”

In his High Court ruling Mr Justice Jay said he had concerns about “certain aspects” of Webberley’s practice in relation to Patient C, a teenager “assigned female at birth” who identified as male.

They included a “failure to have a face-to-face consultation on the issue of fertility”. But he added that the MPTS panel’s “analysis of the issue of serious misconduct” was wrong. Webberley had earlier been fined by magistrates for running an unlicensed transgender clinic from her home in Monmouthshire. She subsequently relocated her firm to Spain.

The National Diversity Awards are held in association with ITV News and sponsored by Kantar, OVO, The Open University, Auto Trader, United Utilities, Lush Liverpool, Direct Line Group and Rathbones.

Rules around prescribing sex change hormones to children in England and Wales were significantly tightened in December 2020 to guard against children being given unsuitable medications.

Doctors in England and Wales are no longer allowed to prescribe cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers to any child under 16 unless the decision, taken jointly by at least two specialist doctors including a senior hormone specialist and a senior psychosocial clinician, is endorsed by a court order.

GenderGP said in a statement: “Transgender healthcare is fraught with politics both socially and also within the medical profession. We have worked tirelessly for improved healthcare for trans and non-binary people and will continue to do so for many years to come. Dr Helen is delighted to be on the shortlist and the comments from those she has helped have been simply amazing.”

Webberley said on Wednesday: “There is terrible toxicity in the UK directed towards trans people and it is shameful. The National Diversity Awards celebrate those who have stood firm in support of LGBT minority groups and you only have to read the comments from those who voted for me to understand why I was shortlisted.”