Yesterday, after having to deal with a plumbing disaster in the kitchen (which for me mainly involved phoning the plumber and panicking while she did the work) I headed off to Weston-super-Mare where the Diversity Trust trans health report was due to get its public launch.

This is something that we have been working on for some time now. The core of the research was an online survey that drew responses from 225 trans and/or non-binary identified people from around the South West. The results are unsurprising to anyone who has any knowledge of the day-to-day realities of being trans. You can read the report and/or executive summary here.

The good thing about this is that Healthwatch have a key role in the health service in the UK. In a world of increasingly commerical GP practices, it is the job of Healthwatch to remind them that they are providing a public service, not just making money for the senior management. If the various local Healthwatch bodies that commissioned the report take our recommendations on board, they may be able to drive through some changes that will improve the way GPs treat trans patients.

Of course some of these changes need to be made at a national level. We’ve talked to most of the local Healthwatch bodies in our region, but it would be good to coordinate. If anyone out there working in trans health has also talked to their local Healthwatch I would love to swap notes.