Study rejects claims youth suicides rose after NHS cut puberty blockers

A government-ordered inquiry has debunked claims that suicide rates among young people with gender dysphoria have risen sharply since the NHS restricted access to puberty-blocking drugs.

A report by the government’s adviser on suicide prevention also found that the claims – created by the action group The Good Law Project – were not supported by data and could encourage children under 18 to commit suicide.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting last week asked Prof Louis Appleby, a leading mental health expert at the University of Manchester, to investigate suicide rates among current and former patients of the now-defunct Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust gender identity development service (GID).

And in his paperpublished Friday, Appleby said he had found no evidence to support the claims.

“The data do not support the claim that there has been a large increase in suicide among young patients attending Tavistock’s gender services since the 2020 High Court ruling or any other recent date,” his analysis concluded. It looked at the care received by, and outcomes seen in, patients of the London-based specialist mental health trust.

The Good Law Project’s executive director, Jo Maugham, said in response: “I was not contacted prior to the publication of the statement and will obviously need time to respond. I have issues with the figures and analysis and will respond in due course.”

Appleby also advised patients, NHS staff and campaign groups not to see the provision of puberty blockers as “the touchstone issue, the difference between acceptance and non-acceptance (of gender dysphoria). We need to get rid of that perception.”

He was asked to examine the evidence base for claims that the NHS’s decision to restrict access to puberty-blocking drugs following the High Court ruling in the Keira Bell case in December 2020 had led to a “surge” or “explosion” in suicides among young people with gender dysphoria. Three judges ruled that people under 16 did not have the capacity to decide whether or not to give informed consent to take the drugs.

In addition to noting that no evidence has been found to support the suicide claims, Appleby also stressed that “the way this issue has been discussed on social media is insensitive, disturbing and dangerous, and contrary to (Samaritans) guidelines for safe suicide reporting.”

“The claims placed in the public domain do not meet basic standards of statistical evidence,” he added.

He pointed out the possibility that ‘already stressed adolescents hear the message that ‘people like you, who have similar problems, kill themselves,’ which can lead to imitative suicide or self-harm’.

Appleby, an expert in mental health statistics, found evidence of 12 suicides among current and former Gids patients in the six years between 2018-19 and 2023-24. Six of these were under the age of 18.

Five suicides occurred in the three years before 2020-21 and seven in the three years after. “This is essentially no difference, allowing for expected small-number fluctuations,” he said.

Kate Barker, director of the LGB Alliance, said: “It is disturbing that completely unsubstantiated claims about increased suicidality have been allowed to take root and be given credence by people in public life who should have known better than to play politics with such an emotional issue.

“Now the whole world can see these claims for what they are: a cynical attempt to spread disinformation to serve a dangerous and homophobic ideology.”