Medical Centre

On the 29 March 2017, the Prime Minister of the UK Theresa May, formally notified the European Union (EU) Council President, Donald Tusk, of the UK’s intention to leave the EU. Theresa May’s letter to Donald Tusk triggers a two-year process during which the UK will have to negotiate both the terms of its exit from EU and the arrangements that will replace those we have had for over 40 years with the other member states of the EU. The consequences of the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU (commonly referred to as ‘Brexit’) will be wide-ranging and will affect all areas of UK’s society, including the National Health Service (NHS). For the NHS, Brexit comes at a time when it faces many other major challenges. These include severe financial pressures, rising workload, increased waiting times for both primary care and specialist services, and shortages of health professionals in many key areas (such as in general practice and in emergency departments). The NHS also faces challenges f...

A recent article published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine discusses the management of transgender patient. Transgender people, whose gender identities, expressions or behaviours differ from those predicted by their sex assigned at birth, are receiving increased attention both in the general media and in the medical press. Recent guidelines in the UK have proposed placing much of the responsibility of care for transgender patients on primary care physicians and their teams. With waiting lists for most gender identity clinics extending beyond 12 months and increasing numbers of patients coming forward for treatment, hospital doctors are also likely to encounter transgender patients in their clinical practice. General Medical Council guidance published in 2016 recommended that general practitioners play a key role in the care of transgender patients. This includes counselling or appropriate referral (which can be done directly by general practitioners, without an inte...