A parent taking the WellBN gender clinic in Brighton to court over the treatment of his child has lost his bid to see the results of a recently completed investigation into potential malpractice at the clinic.
The report was commissioned in June last year. As part of its scope, investigators were asked to:
- Identify patient harm and potential harm requiring onward monitoring.
- Ensure patients are supported and receiving high quality care.
- Identify any breach of the Government’s legislation that places restrictions on the supply of GnRH analogues.
- Consider whether any referral of individuals to the police is necessary.
- Individually review a holistic care and treatment plan for patients to include the following options where appropriate, to safely terminate the use of NHS prescribed exogenous hormones where this is clinically indicated and/or secure access to
psycho-social support in the commissioned gender services and/or within CYP mental health services. - Alert the ICB to any other concerns that become apparent as an outcome of the case note review.
- Identify any recommendations to reduce future risks to patients for action by individual NHS services, the ICB or NHS England.
Their report was completed on Friday last week, but lawyers acting for WellBN argued it should not be handed over, even though the parent’s legal team said it understood “the report will be published and accessible in the public domain in the near future”.
Background
The parent – known as ATN, due to an anonymity order made in February last year – wants to challenge the legality of WellBN prescribing hormones to under 18s outside of NHS guidance handed down in 2024 in the light of the Cass Review.
WellBN is technically a GP surgery, and used to be run by a trans-identifying woman called Dr Sam Hall until she resigned under mysterious circumstances September 2024. According to parents I have spoken to who live in around Brighton, WellBN was notorious for handing out hormones like sweets to pretty much anyone who wanted them.
In March 2024, new NHS guidance should have put a stop to GPs prescribing hormones for new patients u18 without approval from a multidisciplinary team based in specialist commissioning. The guidance was created in the light of the Cass Review into gender care for children.
It seems WellBN decided it knew best and carried on prescribing. In August last year, the journalist Hannah Barnes published her own investigation into WellBN in The New Statesman. She wrote:
“As of May 2025, up to 139 children (under 18) were in receipt of either irreversible hormones or drugs to block their puberty, or both, from Brighton’s WellBN practice. While the majority being prescribed hormones – testosterone for girls wanting to appear more masculine, oestrogen for males wishing to feminise their bodies – were aged between 15 and 17 and a half, official records show some were under 13 years old…. Children this young have never been approved for hormones in NHS specialist gender services.“
Barnes wrote that “multiple health authorities, including the General Medical Council (GMC) and NHS England, have been aware of concerns relating to these same practices dating back at least five years. At both a national and local level, the NHS has known that WellBN has been prescribing outside of all NHS guidelines for young people, and yet no one has taken meaningful action.”
Cease and Desist
What we heard in court today bolstered and corroborated Barnes’ story. In late 2024, ATN discovered his child (known by the court as ATT) was still getting hormones from WellBN. He alerted NHS Sussex and the General Medical Council who appeared to do nothing, slowly. ATN then launched a judicial review (JR) in February 2025 (announced in the Telegraph in Dec 2024), querying the lawfulness of WellBN’s policy. It was only then the NHS decided to do something.
In April 2025, NHS England sent WellBN a letter telling it its hormone prescribing policy was neither to supply “bridging prescriptions” nor was it being done after assessment of each patient by a specialist multidisciplinary team. It was therefore potentially breaking the terms of its in General Medical Services (GMS) contract, and if it didn’t stop prescribing hormones for new under 18 patients in the light of the 2024 NHS guidance, it could lose its licence to practice.
WellBN wrote back to the NHS, telling it was providing an essential frontline service and therefore it wasn’t operating outside the terms of its GMS contract. It then posted a message on its website saying it had been “advised” to “cease the initiation of new NHS prescriptions for gender-affirming care for individuals under the age of 18. This also includes a restriction on transferring prescriptions from the private sector.”
WellBN said it was “currently awaiting an upcoming meeting with NHS Sussex to discuss this situation” and reassured readers “we will continue to prescribe to those already established under WellBN’s care and for whom prescriptions have already been transferred from private providers. The restriction is specifically related to starting new prescriptions.”
The NHS then commissioned its investigation, which has now been completed with the report finalised on 8 May this year, but not yet released.
A Hearing within a Hearing
Today was convened as a permission hearing with the judge hearing arguments from both sides as to why this case should or shouldn’t proceed to full judicial review. First the judge was asked to make a ruling as to whether the NHS report into WellBN’s activities, criminal, harmful or otherwise should be handed over to ATN.
Lawyers for ATN argued that given the investigation was in part prompted by ATN’s application for judicial review, its contents were likely to be extremely pertinent to the substance of the review – particularly the lawfulness of WellBN’s prescribing policy. ATN’s barrister, Vikram Sachdeva KC, told the court “if the report says there is a serious deviation from all professional standards, that is highly relevant to… our argument.” He further pointed out that if permission to progress the JR was denied and the report was released and subsequently found to be highly relevant to the application it would be “unfair”. Sachdeva felt the report was likely “directly relevant” to the grounds of ATN’s case, especially as three people at WellBN have already been referred to the regulator.
Nicola Newbegin KC for WellBN told the judge the report was confidential and as an organisation, WellBN had “obligations” to the people named in the report. The report would be shared with the regulators who would take “appropriate action as they see fit”. It was not relevant to a judicial review permission hearing.
The judge agreed, which means the report will remain suppressed for now.
Permission to Be Heard
And so we moved to the permission hearing itself. ATN’s argument was set out thus:
“The Defendant [WellBN] was exercising a public function and this decision is plainly amenable to judicial review, the claim is not academic, the Claimant [ATN] has standing to bring this claim, there is no alternative remedy open to the Claimant, and the legality of the policy under challenge in this claim have not been addressed via the proceedings in the Family Division (nor could it have been). The claim has been brought in time, the grounds demonstrate arguable errors of public law; and accordingly, the threshold for permission is met and permission should be granted.”
Each point was addressed both in written submissions and orally by Vikram Sachdeva who zeroed in on the potential unlawfulness of WellBN’s activities in prescribing outside of NHS guidance. WellBN deny breaking the law, the NHS clearly thought it might be when it instructed WellBN to stop prescribing to under 18s the way it was.
The judge wondered if ATM was trying to “turn the administrative court into a regulator”, at which Sachdeva made the point that (as with a lot of public bodies when it comes to safeguarding and gender), the regulators didn’t seem very interested in this matter until the judicial review was launched. He turned to the public interest test for pursuing the JR. Sachdeva said this was what stopped the JR application from being academic – WellBN said it was not operating outside the rules and the BMA website says GPs “may have the competence to prescribe hormones even before seeing a specialist care provider”. Yet the NHS has effectively banned the practice. So who’s right?
Sachdeva reminded the court there were real children at the heart of this and at least one very concerned parent who “doesn’t want other families to go through what he has been through with a GP surgery acting totally contrary to Cass, the NHS guidance and guidance from the Royal College of GPs”. Sachdeva noted that Dame Hilary Cass, in her report, found the evidence base for the benefits of cross-sex hormones to be “very weak”, which was why it was such a matter of concern that doctors were prescribing them for children in the first place.
Begin Again
WellBN’s barrister Nicola Newbegin was quite certain that GP practices were not providing public services, being profit-making private companies. She may have trouble running that argument, but her points about standing, alternative remedy and the matter being academic felt stronger.
On the latter point, Newbegin told the court that the “service” being complained about “is no longer being provided”. There was
“no evidence a large number of cases exist or are anticipated… it’s clear that this is now an historic policy”
Newbegin recognised this was a matter of “huge public debate” but said it should be had in parliament and public. It was not for the court to determine. Newbegin also said the public interest in this hearing taking place must also extend to ATN’s child [ATT] and the impact on “her” of these proceedings.
In terms of standing, Newbegin said ATT had at all times since the JR was launched been over sixteen (an age which brings certain rights of autonomy) and had the capacity to understand and consent to her treatment. “She is noticeably not bringing this claim”, said Newbegin and given she soon turns 18, “there is no way the outcome of this JR can affect her or her family”.
Newbegin looked around the courtroom, and added there was “no evidence” there were other young people who would support the JR application. “It’s so obvious [ATN] doesn’t have standing… However genuine and however heartfelt his views – and I’m not here to second guess them – he does not have standing.”
On the matter of alternative remedy Newbegin told the court “we have a breach of contract dispute which can be dealt with a commercial adjudicator”. There was no dispute in law. “My clients thought they were providing services within the general medical contract.” And when they were told to stop “they complied with the remediation notice”. Newbegin said there is already an “ongoing process” to decide what is best for the patients in the same cohort as ATT “and that is primarily a clinical decision”. Not one for JR.
The judge said he would issue his ruling at a later, unspecified date. The case rolls on, and may start trundling in interesting directions. It is possible ATN could appeal the decision not to order the disclosure of the WellBN investigation report. It is possible the report may be published before the judge decides on permission, in which case ATN could apply to have it considered. If permission to go to JR is refused that too can be appealed and the refusal to consider the investigation report may or may not be a factor in the appeal. If permission is granted we go to a full judicial review, providing ATN wants to continue pursuing the case and has the funds to do so.
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