GP forced out after raising gender care concerns, tribunal hears; NHS admits some processes were mishandled

In July 2020, a doctor in Sussex rang a colleague with a worry about a patient. The patient was an 18-year-old woman, distressed about her gender, who had used an online clinic registered overseas. The clinic wanted the doctor's surgery to take over prescribing testosterone. The colleague she called was Dr Sarah Redvers, then a named safeguarding GP for Sussex, the person other doctors could turn to when they had safety concerns about patients.

The doctor had also been advised on such prescriptions by a Brighton GP, Dr Sam Hall. Redvers, speaking publicly for the first time, has told the BBC and an employment tribunal that her concern was that Hall was recommending treatment for patients he had not assessed or met, and that other GPs were uncomfortable prescribing it. She spoke to NHS England and was advised to raise the complaint as a whistleblower. It was investigated, and NHS England said it was satisfied with Hall's practice.

Over the following months, other GPs came to her with worries about the quality of assessments, the prescribing of puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones, and the lack of specialist supervision at WellBN, the clinic where Hall was based. A second NHS investigation followed. Redvers says the investigator told her there was a general worry that allegations of transphobia would be made. That investigation considered the full scope of Hall's work and found no cause for concern, adding that one colleague's persistent interest in the issue appeared disproportionate. Redvers took that to mean her.

Hall qualified as a GP in 2019, is a trans man, and is known in Brighton as a campaigner for transgender rights. He has said publicly that his own pain showed him the importance of affirmative care. He was also working with the local NHS on a Trans Health hub and with a Brighton charity, The Clare Project. Redvers says her concerns were about the quality of care and the medical evidence behind it, not anyone's views on gender. She calls any suggestion of transphobia appalling, and says it is dangerous that such claims obscured the medical and safeguarding questions.

In 2021, while the second investigation was pending, local mental health services raised a concern about the care of a vulnerable 15-year-old. Redvers referred Hall to the General Medical Council. Hall emailed Adam Doyle, then chief executive of NHS Sussex, writing that he was being victimised and needed protection from this individual and their repeated attempts to disrupt his career. Doyle initially told the tribunal he had not known Hall beforehand, but it emerged that he had held several mentoring meetings with him.

The GMC did not take the referral forward. The NHS, however, opened an investigation into Redvers, using an external investigator. She told the tribunal she was called to a four-hour interview she describes as brutal and oppressive, in which she had no real chance to explain what happened. She broke down at one point, was off sick for several months, and received treatment for trauma. Colleagues interviewed in the process also complained about it, and most of those complaints were upheld. The grievance outcome concluded that the chief executive and the trust should apologise to Redvers, and warned that her treatment would have a broader negative impact on staff willingness to raise concerns.

In 2023, a year after that outcome, a trans campaigner suggested at an NHS meeting that she was transphobic. Redvers told the tribunal the NHS did not do enough to support her, and she felt she had no choice but to leave her safeguarding role. Around then, parents, school governors and social workers began raising their own concerns about WellBN and Hall. Rachel Cashman, co-founder of the campaign group PSHE Brighton, called it a travesty that Redvers was punished for doing her job.

In June 2026, nearly six years after her first concerns, a separate NHS safety investigation found that 78 children, some as young as 13, had potentially been harmed after being prescribed puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones without proper checks at WellBN. The report said it responded to a drug review in autumn 2024, not to Redvers' earlier concerns. NHS England called it totally unacceptable that young people were put at risk because practitioners provided care they were not commissioned to deliver. Redvers said reading about a scandal that could have been stopped was upsetting, because concerns were raised appropriately and leaders knew.

NHS England says that when concerns about one GP's prescribing reached its national directors in 2023, they met an affected family and asked regional standards leads to investigate. Wider concerns emerged, WellBN was told to stop its specialised prescribing service, and an independent patient safety investigation began in 2025. NHS Surrey and Sussex says some employment processes should have been handled differently, and it has apologised. Hall and WellBN have been approached for comment; WellBN said in June that it recognised the seriousness of the matters and that its priority remained compassionate, safe and effective care.

Redvers' constructive dismissal claim, against NHS Sussex Integrated Care Board and Doyle, who left the chief executive post in 2025, now awaits judgment, which may take several months.