NHS CHI Number…again

An article in today’s Telegraph “Scots NHS unsure how many trans patients have taken ‘risk’ by changing sex on records” reported on the number of patients who have changed the sex marker on their NHS CHI numbers, as revealed in the Freedom of Information request we submitted to NHS Scotland.

Shockingly, the NHS only started collecting this information in November of last year, and only after we raised concerns with the Chief Medical Officer in October about the clinical risks this practice introduces. We wrote to the CMO again after the final Cass report highlighted the same issue and recommended a need to “review the processes and circumstances of changing NHS numbers and find solutions to address the clinical and research implications”. Once again, however, we received a less than satisfactory response with no commitment to resolve the issue but instead stated an intention to exacerbate the clinical risks by reviewing the use of a sex code to enable non-binary people to be recognised. Our correspondence and the replies received can be read here.

In the period since we first contacted the CMO, the Court of Session Inner House has issued an important ruling regarding the law on the protected characteristic of sex which states a person’s sex can only be changed once a Gender Recognition Certificate is obtained. As reported in the Telegraph article, we have now written the following letter to the Chief Executive and Chair of the Board of NHS Lothian and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

A recent report by the Scottish Government recognises (at paragraph 377) that it is “important for clinicians to have access to both biological sex and gender identity to support the appropriate provision of care and treatment”, so we will await a response to our letter with interest.


Update: 16 October 2024

It’s quite the thing. You write to a health board and yet receive a reply from the Scottish Government. This is the response we received on 1st October to our above letter.

To which we responded – to the health boards – on 16th October with the following:

We have spent over a year corresponding on this issue and are yet to receive a response that engages with the clinical risks we have raised.


Update: 16 November 2024

On 14th November we received the following reply which at least recognised GPs were not advising patients of the clinical risks caused by changing the sex marker on their CHI number, and confirmed steps would be taken to correct this by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

We sent the following reply to the health boards on 16th November:

and this letter to the Scottish Government Digital Health and Care Directorate: