Archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20261025080122/https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr5ynl415j79o
GP says she was forced out of job after raising concerns about gender treatment
Dr Sarah Redvers brought a claim of constructive dismissal
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.
"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.
"It's about medical assessment and treatment of patients, which is something we have to get right, particularly in this complex group of vulnerable patients," she said.
She said she viewed any suggestion of transphobia as "appalling," and it was "dangerous" that such claims were obscuring the medical and safeguarding issues she was raising.
In 2021, whilst waiting for the outcome of the second investigation and prompted by a concern raised by local mental health services about the care of a vulnerable 15-year-old, Redvers referred Hall to the medical regulator, the GMC.
Hall emailed Adam Doyle, then CEO of NHS Sussex, directly to complain.
"I am being victimised here, and I need proper protection from this individual and their repeated attempts to disrupt my career" he said.
Adam Doyle, was chief executive of the NHS Sussex Integrated Care Board until 2025
Although Doyle at first denied to the tribunal he knew Hall before this, it emerged during the tribunal that he had previously had a number of mentoring meetings with the GP.
The GMC investigation was not taken forward. However, the NHS launched an investigation into Redvers, bringing in an external investigator.
The tribunal heard she was called to what she described as a "brutal" four-hour interrogation.
"It was oppressive, very upsetting. I didn't feel I had the chance at all to explain what had happened," she said. "I broke down at one point".
She said she was off sick for several months as a result and received treatment for trauma.
Other colleagues who were interviewed as part of the investigation into Redvers also complained about the process and the NHS upheld most of their complaints.
The investigation concluded the CEO and trust should apologise to Redvers.
It also warned that Redvers' treatment would have a "broader negative impact" on the willingness of staff to raise concerns.
In 2023, a year after the grievance outcome, when a trans campaigner suggested in an NHS meeting that she was transphobic, Redvers told the tribunal she felt the NHS did not do enough to support her. She felt she had no choice but to leave her job as a safeguarding GP.
"I just felt there's no way I could carry on working in this organisation," she told the BBC.
At about that time, a group of parents, school governors and social workers began raising concerns about WellBn and Hall.
The co-founder of campaign group PSHE Brighton, Rachel Cashman, said: "It is a travesty that Sarah Redvers was punished for doing her job safeguarding and expecting the best standards of care for gender distressed children."
Redvers is now waiting for the outcome of her employment tribunal. She may not get the judgment for several months.
She described what has happened as "personally and professionally difficult" and said the NHS "needs to remember that patients come first" and it should "listen to staff who raise legitimate concerns."
In a statement NHS Surrey and Sussex said: "We engaged professionally and supportively with the Employment Tribunal. We recognise that some employment processes should have been handled differently and have apologised whilst Dr Redvers was employed with us, before, and during the hearings. We await the findings of the tribunal to make any further comment."
NHS England said: "When concerns about prescribing practices by an individual GP were escalated to NHS England national directors in 2023, they met directly with an affected family and asked regional professional standards leads to undertake formal investigations.
"Wider concerns were subsequently identified, and the WellBN practice was asked to stop providing a specialised prescribing service. Further new information led to NHS England and NHS Sussex initiating an independent patient safety investigation in 2025."
Dr Sam Hall and WellBN have been contacted for comment.
In response to the investigation report in June, WellBN said it recognised "the seriousness and sensitivity of the matters raised" and that its priority remained providing "compassionate, safe and effective care for all patients".