An NHS chief was unaware a Hove GP was prescribing puberty blockers and hormones to children despite a whistleblower repeatedly raising concerns, he told an employment tribunal today. <\/p>\n
Adam Doyle is also being quizzed on why NHS Sussex, of which he was the chief executive, launched an investigation into allegations of transphobia against Dr Sarah Redvers after she had flagged issues with Dr Samuel Hall\u2019s prescribing practices from 2020 onwards. <\/p>\n
Dr Redvers is alleging constructive dismissal, saying the way she was treated by both NHS Sussex and by Mr Doyle forced her to resign in July 2024. <\/p>\n
Just months later, in November 2024, NHS Sussex began a new investigation into Dr Hall\u2019s practice, WellBN, after exceptionally high levels of hormone prescriptions to minors were flagged. <\/p>\n
That investigation culminated in a report published in May this year which found the practice, and Dr Hall in particular, had put scores of children at harm by prescribing hormones with inadequate assessments or monitoring. <\/p>\n
Dr Hall was immediately suspended as a result. <\/p>\n
Today, Mr Doyle was quizzed by Dr Redvers\u2019 barrister Chris Milsom, who asked him about Dr Redvers\u2019 belief in evidence based medicine, which she says is a protected belief and one which NHS Sussex discriminated against her for holding. <\/p>\n
Mr Milsom said: \u201cThat belief is in reality the foundation of Western medicine \u2013 that you treat a patient based on evidence, rather than social justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Doyle agreed \u2013 and also agreed with Mr Milsom that the belief was worth of respect.<\/p>\n
He was also read quotes from a piece Dr Hall contributed to Scene Magazine, which Mr Milsom said he \u201cwrites evangelically, would you agree, about his transition.\u201d<\/p>\n
MR Doyle said: \u201cHe\u2019s writing very positively about his transition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Milsom said: \u201cIt\u2019s not transphobic to say that someone who writes so evangelically, there might be a risk they\u2019re putting their beliefs over their patients\u2019 wellbeing?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Doyle said: \u201cThere\u2019s the possibility of that, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Doyle also agreed that statements made by Dr Hall that only people who described trans medicine as experimental were gender critical activists funded by the far right were \u201cextreme\u201d. <\/p>\n
Mr Milsom said: \u201cCentral to Dr Hall\u2019s thinking is the need to abolish gatekeeping for the provision of healthcare. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe is pursuing a model he readily recognises is in opposition to the basic prescriptions of Western healthcare \u2013 correct?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Doyle agreed. <\/p>\n
Mr Doyle was also read parts of a transcript of an interview Dr Hall gave in July 2025, in which he said: \u201cWe\u2019ve built up a service at WellBN, this practice, over the last five years with funding from NHS Sussex, who have been hitherto very supportive of trans healthcare and our model, which is really flying in the face of traditional gender clinic system that we\u2019re stuck with in this country.\u201d <\/p>\n
He later said: \u201cAt my level, there were concerns raised at different points and I always asked my chief medical and chief nursing officer to investigate it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr Redvers started work as a named GP for safeguarding with West Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group in September 2019. <\/p>\n
She was approached by GP who had concerns about patients being prescribed testosterone by Gender GP \u2013 a practice run by two doctors who were struck off by the GMC and then moved operations abroad. <\/p>\n
Dr Redvers approached NHS England to raise this and in January 2021 it commissioned Dr Robin Warshafsky to investigate this, plus concerns the Gender GP prescriptions were being taken over by Dr Hall. <\/p>\n
In March, Dr Redvers also referred Dr Hall to the GMC. The same month, Dr Hall wrote a paper for Sussex NHS chiefs titled Prescribing for trans young people which set out his belief in the informed consent model, and said GPs should be able to prescribe puberty blockers to children, and cross-sex hormones to 16 and 17-year-olds. <\/p>\n
By this time, Dr Hall had set up a trans health hub within WellBN. Later that month, Dr Warshafsky\u2019s report found no professional concerns but sought assurances Dr Hall, who has no gender specialism qualifications, was prescribing outside his competency. It did not criticise Dr Redvers. <\/p>\n
However, the GMC pursued their investigation, and in April wrote to Dr Hall saying an interim order hearing would be held. <\/p>\n
Dr Hall then emailed Mr Doyle, writing: \u201cAdam \u2026 the person targeting me has now triggered a GMC misconduct tribunal. <\/p>\n
\u201cNHSE are stalling on releasing their report which exonerates me and my colleagues of any professional misconduct. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am being victimised here and I need proper protection from the individual and their repeated attempts to disrupt my career.\u201d<\/p>\n
He lodged an official complaint in July 2021, and Dusty Amroliwala was subsequently commissioned to investigate. <\/p>\n
Dr Redvers says she was never given a full copy of his final report, but alleges Mr Doyle shared it with NHS England asking for it to form the basis of a case against her. <\/p>\n
In January 2022, she submitted her own grievance into how the investigation had been handled \u2013 and investigator Samantha Durrant found in her favour on all counts. <\/p>\n
However, by this point her mental health had suffered significantly and after periods off work, she eventually quit. <\/p>\n
Mr Doyle will be questioned over the commissioning and conduct of Mr Amroliwala\u2019s investigation and its fallout tomorrow. <\/p>\n
The tribunal, which began last week, is scheduled to last until the end of next week. <\/p>\n
Mr Doyle left NHS Sussex shortly before it was announced it would be merging with NHS Surrey. He\u2019s now chief executive of NHS Kent and Medway. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An NHS chief was unaware a Hove GP was prescribing puberty blockers and hormones to children despite a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-801723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}