Wales's only trans clinic urgently halts operations over safety concerns

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Freedom of information data from 2025 reveals that an average of 13 individuals per 100,000 were referred for gender surgery in Wales

Wales's only adult NHS gender clinic has urgently halted all operations over safety concerns.

The Welsh Gender Service has halted all gender-affirming surgery operations and suspended new surgical referrals following intervention by NHS Wales.

The service, based at St Davids Hospital in Cardiff, was designated a "potential service of concern" last week owing to referral rates for surgery that significantly exceeded those of comparable clinics elsewhere in the UK.

The NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee, which oversees commissioning across all seven Welsh health boards, convened on Monday to examine the clinic's disproportionately high surgical referral figures.

By Friday, the decision had been taken to suspend all procedures pending an independent clinical review.

While the WGS refers patients for treatment, the actual operations are performed at facilities in England.

Roughly 17 per cent of the approximately 4,900 gender-related surgical referrals made across the UK during 2024 and 2025 originated from the Welsh Gender Service, despite Wales comprising fewer than five per cent of the country's total population.

NHS Wales stated that concerns had emerged from 2025-26 referral data showing "significantly higher rates of referral for gender affirming surgery from the Welsh Gender Service compared with English gender services".

The Welsh Conservatives have demanded a comprehensive independent investigation into the clinic's practices.

Natasha Asghar, the party's health spokeswoman, said: "When one service is referring people for irreversible procedures at three or four times the UK average, there has to be proper scrutiny of why that is happening."

She stressed the need to ensure the WGS was not "rubber-stamping" patients through for surgery.

Reform Wales leader Dan Thomas wrote to First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth before the announcement, urging immediate action, alleging that autism and other conditions were not being adequately assessed.

Mr Thomas also claimed to have received "serious allegations" that WGS staff encouraged patients to cut ties with family members who raised concerns about proposed interventions.

The NWJCC described the suspension as a "precautionary and clinically-led step to ensure that referrals for gender surgery are supported by robust quality, safety and clinical governance arrangements".

The review will be conducted by "experienced gender clinicians, of patients on the surgery waiting lists".

David Fluck, executive medical director at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, confirmed that hormone therapy, endocrine reviews and psychological support services remain unaffected by the pause.

Reports emerged that individuals had learned their procedures had been scrapped just hours before they were scheduled.

One person posted on Reddit's TransgenderUK forum that their partner's chest surgery was cancelled with fewer than 12 hours' notice, after accommodation and medical leave had already been arranged.