Midwives across the National Health Service are being required to fill out what critics have labelled as "farcical" electronic forms that document the gender identity and sexual orientation of newborn babies. This development forms part of the extensive rollout of a £450 million software upgrade being implemented throughout the NHS, raising significant concerns among healthcare professionals and campaigners alike.
Whistleblower Reveals Staff 'Shock' at Training Session
A whistleblower has come forward to The Mail on Sunday, revealing that staff at the Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust were left "shocked" during a training session for the new Epic software system. The source disclosed that the registration forms, which are completed just hours after a baby is born, presented no option to record the infant's biological sex. Instead, the forms prompted healthcare staff to log several other categories.
Controversial Form Fields and Drop-Down Menus
The form, described by campaigners as "ludicrous," asks midwives to record an infant's legal sex, sex assigned at birth, and gender identity alongside the standard birth time and date. Furthermore, a drop-down menu is included, presenting options for the newborn's sexual orientation. The anonymous midwife reported that colleagues felt "worried" by these requirements but were apprehensive about raising the issue with NHS managers for fear of being labelled as bigots.
Women's rights campaigners have strongly criticised the NHS, accusing it of being so "in thrall" to gender identity ideology that it fails to acknowledge how its software could impose misleading information on newborns for their entire lives. It is understood that the US-developed software, which includes these options partly due to lobbying by trans rights activists to the Biden administration, has already been adopted by at least ten NHS trusts across the country.
Campaigners and Academics Voice Serious Concerns
Fiona McAnena, from the campaign group Sex Matters, stated: "Trusts can and do customise this software; they could easily remove anything that might get in the way of accurate information and good healthcare. This is an example of how harmful transgender ideology can be. The concept of babies having a gender identity is farcical, but sex is essential medical information. Trusts have chosen to include ludicrous software elements, such as babies' gender identity and pronouns."
This is not the first instance of such issues arising. The Mail on Sunday revealed in 2023 that midwives completing discharge forms for newborns at Guy's and St Thomas's Hospital and King's College Hospital in London could only select a 'gender identity' on the same Epic system. At the time, NHS bosses acknowledged a "system error" and promised the technology would be updated to record biological sex only. However, this latest incident suggests the problematic issues persist.
Midwife Questions Lack of Common Sense
The Torbay midwife expressed bewilderment, asking: "Why on earth hasn't this form been adapted to be appropriate for a newborn? I hope that common sense will prevail and nobody would try to fill in those boxes. Unfortunately, common sense doesn't seem to be in good supply. These are not mandatory fields. But this is the backbone of documentation that will follow babies for life. It's proof the baby exists and is needed to get a birth certificate. The fact that it's asking for assigned sex at birth is worrying."
Professor Alice Sullivan, who led a government review last year that demanded public bodies collect data on sex as well as gender, has called on the Government to intervene. She argued that the NHS should not be permitted to purchase software that "embeds a particular political ideology instead of facilitating appropriate medical data collection."
Official Response from Implementing Body
One Devon, the organisation responsible for implementing the Epic software at University Hospitals Plymouth and the Torbay and South Devon Foundation Trust, provided a statement. It said: "The system has a template when registering new patients, including newborns. When creating a newborn's record the only data the system is configured to require is date of birth and legal sex." This response highlights a potential discrepancy between the system's configuration and the additional, controversial fields that appear on the forms shown to staff.
The situation underscores a growing tension between evolving administrative practices, ideological considerations, and the fundamental need for accurate, biologically-based medical records from the moment of birth. It raises critical questions about data collection protocols, software procurement policies, and the practical realities faced by frontline NHS staff during a major technological transition.
