Dear enquirer

Thank you for contacting the Information Access Team at the Care Quality
Commission (CQC).

Please accept this automated response as acknowledgement that we have
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What we do

We coordinate responses to requests for recorded information made in
accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the General
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If you are making a request for information which falls under these Acts and
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Kind regards

The Information Access Team 

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Dear Ms Prosho

I acknowledge receipt of your correspondence dated 9 July 2021, in which
you made a request for information.

Your request is as follows:

“Please provide details of any inspection performed on each UK adult
Gender Identity Clinic since they were instituted.

Please could you also clarify the following:

Are GICs exempt from inspection? Looking at your own criteria it does not
appear to be the case, and if exempt, why was was GIDS inspected (as this
appears to be a contradiction)?

Why are the GIC services not registered with the CQC?

If no inspections have been carried out, despite well known issues with
care and waiting lists - Why they have not been inspected to date despite
almost 10 years of operation?

for reference, the clinics are:

-The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust: Gender Dysphoria Clinic
for Adults -Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust Gender
Dysphoria Service -Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust Gender
Dysphoria Service -Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation
Trust Northern Region Gender Dysphoria Service -Northamptonshire
Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Gender Dysphoria Clinic -Nottinghamshire
Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust The Nottingham Centre for Transgender
Health -Devon Partnership NHS Trust West of England Specialist Gender
Dysphoria Clinic”

CQC will consider your request in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

Our statutory deadline for response is 6 August 2021, but we will in any
event endeavour to respond as soon as possible.

We will write to you if we are unable to meet this deadline.

Please be aware that there may be a delay in providing a response to your
request for information. The Information Access team are experiencing a
higher than usual workload at present due to the pandemic situation. We
are currently working through a backlog of work and will respond to each
request as soon as possible. We thank you for your patience.

The information you have requested may be subject to an exemption from the
right to know. Should this occur, we will explain the reasons why when we
respond.

Regards

On behalf of:

Information Access Team

Regulatory Customer & Corporate Operations 

Care Quality Commission

Citygate

Gallowgate

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE1 4PA

The Care Quality Commission is the independent regulator of health and
adult social care services in England. [1]www.cqc.org.uk. For general
enquiries, call the National Customer Service Centre (NCSC) on 03000
616161 or email [2][email address]

Personal data is processed in accordance with the General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR) and relevant data protection law. Information on the
processing of personal data by CQC can be found at
[3]www.cqc.org.uk/about-us/our-policies/privacy-statement

Statutory requests for information made under access to information
legislation such as the Data Protection Act 2018, GDPR and the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 should be sent to: [4][CQC request email]

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References

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4. mailto:[CQC request email]

Dear Ms Prosho

Our Ref: CQC IAT 2122 0307

I write in response to your correspondence of 9 July in which you asked
for the following information:

“Please provide details of any inspection performed on each UK adult
Gender Identity Clinic since they were instituted.

Please could you also clarify the following:

Are GICs exempt from inspection? Looking at your own criteria it does not
appear to be the case, and if exempt, why was was GIDS inspected (as this
appears to be a contradiction)?

Why are the GIC services not registered with the CQC?

If no inspections have been carried out, despite well known issues with
care and waiting lists - Why they have not been inspected to date despite
almost 10 years of operation?

for reference, the clinics are:

-The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust: Gender Dysphoria Clinic
for Adults -Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust Gender
Dysphoria Service -Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust Gender
Dysphoria Service -Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation
Trust Northern Region Gender Dysphoria Service -Northamptonshire
Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Gender Dysphoria Clinic -Nottinghamshire
Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust The Nottingham Centre for Transgender
Health -Devon Partnership NHS Trust West of England Specialist Gender
Dysphoria Clinic”

The Information Access team has now coordinated a response to your
request.

CQC has considered your request in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

Our first obligation under the legislation is to confirm whether we do or
do not hold the requested information.

In accordance with section 1(1) of FOIA we are able to confirm that CQC
does hold recorded information in relation to this matter.

Your request

Persons must register with CQC if they carry out one of the activities we
regulate. Those activities are listed in ‘[1]The Scope of Registration’.

In addition, during registration, the person applying will need to specify
in what setting a regulated activity will be provided.

For example, the regulated activity of Treatment of disease, disorder or
injury can be provided by a dentist, a GP or a hospital. Therefore, the
service type will indicate the setting in which it is provided, such as
Dental services, Doctors treatment service or Acute services. For more
information about service types, please visit:

[2]www.cqc.org.uk/guidance-providers/regulations-enforcement/service-types

Gender Identity Services is not a service type, or a regulated activity in
itself. It is a service which falls under one of the regulated activities,
in the same way that taking an x-ray would be considered part of
Diagnostic and screening procedures.

With the above in mind, we will inspect providers of Gender Identity
Services using the methodology specific to the service in which they are
being provided, i.e. if they are provided at an NHS hospital, we would
inspect it using NHS Trusts methodology.

The clinics identified in your request, with the exception of Tavistock
and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, have not received inspections just
looking at the specific gender services they deliver.

The providers and the services they deliver will have received inspections
in line with our published methodology. Full details of all inspections
taken place at the providers identified are available on our website.
Where we have reviewed GI services at other providers listed in your
request, our findings would be included in the published inspection
report.

The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust Gender Identity Services

An inspection of The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust was
completed between August and Sept 2018. The report was published on 16
November 2018, and is available on our website

[3]https://api.cqc.org.uk/public/v1/reports...

The statutory deadline for responding to an FOIA request is 20 working
days from the date when CQC received the request therefore you should have
received a response no later than close of business 6 August 2021.

The Information Access team is currently experiencing a higher than usual
workload coupled with a lower than usual staff complement. This has
created a backlog of work that we are working hard to clear, and therefore
regrettably our response to your request has been delayed.

We take our responsibilities under FOIA very seriously and in normal
circumstances respond to over 90% of requests within the statutory
deadline of 20 working days. We are sorry that we were unable to do so on
this occasion.

Please accept our sincere apologies on behalf of CQC for the delay in
responding to your request. Thank you for your patience in this matter.

Yours sincerely

Information Access team

For information about CQC, including contact details, information about
how we use and protect personal data, and how to request information from
us, go to [4]https://www.cqc.org.uk/contact-us

-------------- The contents of this email and any attachments are
confidential to the intended recipient. They may not be disclosed to or
used by or copied in any way by anyone other than the intended recipient.
If this email is received in error, please notify us immediately by
clicking "Reply" and delete the email. Please note that neither the Care
Quality Commission nor the sender accepts any responsibility for viruses
and it is your responsibility to scan or otherwise check this email and
any attachments. Any views expressed in this message are those of the
individual sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be
the views of the Care Quality Commission. Information on how the Care
Quality Commission processes personal data is available here
http://www.cqc.org.uk/about-us/our-polic...

References

Visible links
1. https://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/fil...
2. http://www.cqc.org.uk/guidance-providers...
3. https://api.cqc.org.uk/public/v1/reports...
4. https://www.cqc.org.uk/contact-us