Interview with UK Department of Health Programme Director for Equality Policy |
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Christine Burns notes:
I thought I’d highlight a couple of other resources that may be of interest.
In offering these I’m well aware that the US political landscape is very different to ours. Indeed Stephen Whittle’s latest research serves to underline that the UK is very different from its near European neighbours in some respects. Ironically in the UK we often compare aspects of the NHS that are not doing well enough with better services in neighbouring countries like France and Spain. If you need a hip replacement, for instance, then the quickest way to get it at present is by hopping across the channel to France! Likewise I point across the water to places like Vancouver in Canada when explaining to service commissioners that there are better ways to organise gender care than the way they’ve always done it.
So the spirit in which these resources are offered is not to pat ourselves on the back in any way, but to continue providing you with the kind of ammunition which allows you to lift your own arguments about reform outside of the parameters defined by the history of such things in the US. I hope they allow you to point and say that the Brits left arguments about etiology of trans people behind with the debates about having employment protection (1999) and with the Gender Recognition Act (2004).
The first resource is this page on the Department of Health’s web site:
Scroll down to section D and there you will find the most up to date list of official publications intended to support trans people, their families and clinicians with information about their care. We’ll soon be adding a booklet for general practitioners (family doctors). A comprehensive guide for health service managers on complying with the law’s requirement to treat trans people equally is now also going through the later stages of production prior to publication.
Secondly, whilst I was at the Department of Health’s offices on Friday I dropped by the desk of the programme director for equality policy. After chatting about our progress I recorded an interview with him about the overall approach to making Britain’s health service more equal – both in services and employing people to work there. This is not specifically an interview about trans – the discussion is about equality in its broadest sense – but you’ll notice that trans is automatically now a part of Barry’s vocabulary:
http://podcast.plain-sense.co.uk/2008/05/03/equality-and-human-rights-in-health/Kindest regards
Christine Burns
Equality and Diversity Specialist
Email : c_burns@btinternet.com
Manchester, England
