MERMAIDS’ (a transgender charity and advocacy organisation) ex-CEO, Susie Green has denied any claims that it exerts excessive influence over the NHS Tavistock gender clinic.
Mermaids and Green, are the subject of a Telepgraph article about their association with NHS England’s only gender clinic for young people, the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS trust in London.
Green questioned why anybody would find it unusual for Mermaids, the UK’s largest charity for trans young people, to work with the only NHS England trust delivering services to the same groups in a statement obtained by PinkNews.
Based on Freedom of Information Act releases, the report claims to “expose” connections between Susie Green, who was CEO of Mermaids for six years until her departure in 2022, and then-director of GIDS, Dr Polly Carmichael.
It explains how Green was consulted for a revision of the clinic’s service definition, which went into effect in 2016, and how Mermaids sent a limited number of patients to the clinic.
It also objected to Mermaids being involved in at least two Tavistock studies, with Green serving on an advisory panel for the project in 2015.
Green said it’s not uncommon that “in other areas of NHS care that there are relationships between the service provider and charities that support the same demographic.
“As the parent of a trans child (now thankfully a thriving adult), I have dedicated the past two decades to understand the challenges in this area.
“During this time, I have not only campaigned for my own child, in order to get her the care, she desperately needed, but I have also supported thousands of families. This experience has made me a subject matter expert.
“It is in this capacity as a subject matter expert that I have been invited to represent other parents and their children by various bodies including the Tavistock.”
Green stated that her participation in the redraft of the clinic’s service definition was “clearly specified in the service specification when it was released.”
“I applied to be a stakeholder for the review, as the CEO of the largest UK (and probably European) charity to support transgender children, young people and their families.”
According to reports, the Tavistock clinic first “claimed that it did not have emails or minutes of meetings with Ms Green,” but later provided almost 300 pages.
A spokesperson from the Trust said: “The trust initially performed a search within the limits set by the Freedom of Information Act, which is 18 hours. Conducting a search of this magnitude within the specified timeframe is a challenging task, and the trust produced the results it was able to find within those limits.
“After further instruction from the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office), the trust performed a much more comprehensive search, which took over 300 hours.”
Green also stated that she was a supporter of the World Professional Association of Transgender Health’s (WPATH) most current Standards of Care.
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