GP says she was forced out of job after raising concerns about gender treatment

A doctor who raised concerns about the treatment of children questioning their gender has told the BBC she was accused of transphobia, bullied and harassed out of her child protection job in the NHS.

Dr Sarah Redvers, who was a named safeguarding GP, said she faced a brutal investigation after she passed on complaints brought to her by other doctors.

Speaking publicly for the first time, Redvers said she felt she was "silenced" for doing her job after questioning whether another GP was appropriately assessing the needs of young people who were distressed about their gender identity.

She has brought a claim of constructive dismissal against the NHS Sussex Integrated Care Board (ICB), which managed health services in the county, and Adam Doyle, who was the ICB's chief executive until 2025.

Redvers told a three-week employment tribunal hearing that she felt the focus on investigating her meant issues of patient safety had been sidelined.

Dozens of children put at risk after gender care failures at GP clinic, inquiry finds

Unacceptable waits for adult gender clinic appointments, review says

"I was just bewildered really that the medical and safeguarding issues were completely lost," she said. "It's really risky," she told the BBC.

NHS Surrey and Sussex said: "We recognise that some employment processes should have been handled differently." They have apologised to Redvers.

In June 2026, nearly six years after she first raised concerns, a separate NHS safety investigation found that dozens of children, some as young as 13, had been inappropriately prescribed drugs at the WellBN practice, the clinic where the other doctor worked.

The report said 78 children had potentially been harmed after puberty-blocking drugs and cross sex hormones were prescribed to them without proper checks.

The report said it was in response to a drug review carried out in autumn 2024, not to the concerns first raised by Redvers years earlier.

NHS England said: "It is totally unacceptable young people were put at risk of harm because some practitioners at the WellBN practice provided care they were not commissioned to deliver by the NHS."

"To read about a medical scandal knowing it could have been stopped was upsetting," said Redvers, "because concerns were raised appropriately and leaders knew about it".

Redvers, who has many years of experience working with vulnerable groups, was a named safeguarding GP for Sussex, which meant other doctors who had safety concerns about patients could turn to her for advice and help.

The tribunal heard that in July 2020, a doctor got in touch because she was worried about a patient who had gone to an online clinic which was registered overseas.

It wanted the GP to take over prescribing testosterone to a vulnerable 18-year-old female, who was distressed about her gender.

The doctor was also given advice on such prescriptions by a Brighton GP, Dr Sam Hall.

"The concerns to me were that Hall was recommending treatment for patients that he hadn't assessed, that he hadn't met, and that other GPs were uncomfortable with prescribing," Redvers said.

Redvers spoke to NHS England (NHSE) and was advised to make the complaint as a whistleblower.

It was investigated and NHSE said it was satisfied with Hall's practice.

Over the following months several other GPs voiced their concerns to Redvers about the quality of assessments, the prescription of puberty blocking drugs and cross sex hormones, and the lack of specialist supervision at the WellBN clinic, where Hall was based.

Again, the NHS investigated her concerns. She said she was also told by the investigator that there was a "general worry" that there "would be allegations of transphobia."

Hall, who is a trans man and was born female, qualified as a GP in 2019 and is known as a campaigner for transgender rights in Brighton.

Publicly, he had said that his own pain had shown him the importance of "affirmative care" - support for a patient in a way which accepts rather than challenges their preferred gender and treatment decisions follow from that.

He was also working with the NHS locally on setting up a Trans Health hub and with a Brighton trans support charity called The Clare Project.

The second NHS investigation considered "the full scope" of Hall's work and concluded there was no cause for concern. It also said there was "one colleague whose persistent interest in the issue appeared disproportionate." Redvers took that to mean her.

The concerns she said she and others were raising were about the quality of care being provided, and whether it had the necessary medical evidence to underpin it, not her views on gender.