Is everyone drunk?

Family doctors are to be paid for prescribing hormones to transgender patients, in the first scheme of its kind in the UK.

I don’t think family doctors work for free in the UK, so this “being paid” seems to amount to a sweetener for one particular kind of prescription. Kind of like a bribe. Is that really a good idea?

Under the programme, which was launched yesterday, GPs in Sussex will get £178 a year for every adult to whom they prescribe “cross sex hormone therapy”. They will also be able to claim an extra £91 a year for providing an annual health check to a transgender, non-binary or intersex (TNBI) patient.

“Extra” – so the £178 and the £91 are sweeteners. Bribes.

The scheme, which also requires staff to take training in transgender healthcare, is aimed at reducing the high rates of long-term physical and mental health problems in TNBI patients and improve their low levels of satisfaction with NHS care. Trans rights campaigners welcomed the programme. Patients referred to gender identity clinics (GICs) face waits of years, after referrals soared 240 per cent in five years.

So if all the kids were jumping off roofs would you give ladder-makers £178 a year for every kid who jumped? Maybe instead everyone should be pausing to ask why referrals have soared 240 per cent in five years. Social contagion anyone?

Trans men may be given hormones, such as testosterone, to help with masculinisation while trans women get hormones such as oestrogen to help with feminisation.

Let’s all masculinize or feminize; it sounds like such fun, and so healthy too.

To receive payments, participating surgeries are required to compile a register of anyone considered to be TNBI. The scheme will initially run for three years across Brighton and Hove, East Sussex and West Sussex. Participating GPs must undertake two and a half hours of online training.

Ooooooh two and a half hours, that’s more than enough.