Wales Green Party leader says surgery ordeal helped him understand impact of "ill-thought-out and callous" trans healthcare delays

The leader of the Wales Green Party has revealed how undergoing major surgery himself helped him better understand the distress experienced by trans patients whose gender-affirming operations were abruptly cancelled following a controversial NHS review.

Anthony Slaughter, the Wales Green Party leader and Senedd Member for Caerdydd Penarth, spoke about the issue during a debate on the Welsh Gender Service, where he criticised the decision to pause gender-affirming surgeries and highlighted the impact on patients left in limbo.

In August, NHS officials announced that all surgeries commissioned through the Welsh Gender Service would be temporarily suspended while an urgent review was carried out. The move followed concerns about referral rates and whether all cases met the required standards.

Addressing the Senedd, Slaughter said his inbox had been flooded with messages from trans people, along with their friends and families, who were struggling to understand why operations and assessments had been halted. “Over the past few weeks, my emails, like others, have been flooded with messages from people, distraught and disorientated,” he said.

“People who had surgeries cancelled at the eleventh hour with no explanation or option to reschedule. Patients, friends and family members desperate for answers as to why this had happened, what went wrong and how they could move forward.”

According to Slaughter, hundreds of patients had surgery or surgical assessments paused on 28 August, with some only learning of the decision after arriving at hospital.

“The decision to pause these surgeries was ill-thought-out and callous."

He said many had spent years preparing physically and psychologically for procedures that were suddenly withdrawn without warning. “I listened to people who explained that they were left feeling abandoned, alone and confused, having had the rug pulled from under them at the very last second by the system that is supposed to care for them,” he told members.

Slaughter then revealed he had undergone serious surgery himself during the summer recess, describing the fear and uncertainty he felt in the hours before entering the operating theatre. “Over the summer, I experienced the reality of what prepping for surgery entailed, the physical and mental stress,” he said.

“When I walked onto that silent ward at 05:00 in the morning, the wave of emotion I felt is difficult to put into words, the silence of the sleeping ward, the uncertainty, the fear.”

The Green Party leader said a key difference was that he had confidence in the healthcare professionals treating him and trusted that the system was working in his best interests. “Now, for some, that trust has been broken,” he said.

“To think that, today, right here in Wales, we have a system that, for a certain group of people, is felt to be actively working in opposition to their well-being is a terrifying thought."

He added that if he had been forced to question whether the healthcare system was acting in his interests while facing surgery, it would have made the experience “exponentially so much more traumatic”.

While acknowledging his personal experience, Slaughter stressed that the focus should remain on trans people directly affected by the suspension. “One of the key principles on which our NHS is based is equal access to healthcare for all, regardless of age, gender or background,” he said.

Welsh government urged to reinstate access to trans surgeries after NHS Wales suspension

Trans rights charity TransActual has called on the Welsh Government to urgently restore access to gender-affirming surgeries after NHS Wales paused surgical referrals for trans adults through the Welsh Gender Service. The move has sparked concern among campaigners, who say the decision has left hundreds of patients facing uncertainty,

Scene MagazineGraham Robson

He argued that gender-affirming surgery is a recognised area of medical care and criticised both the decision to pause treatments and the way the move was communicated to patients. “The decision to pause these surgeries was ill-thought-out and callous,” he said.

“For patients to be told, just hours away from surgery, vulnerable but prepared, that their operation would not be going ahead, with no explanation, no indication of a rescheduled date and with no communication in the days following demonstrates a failure of the duty of care that patients are entitled to during one of the most significant events of their lives.”

Slaughter also questioned why Welsh services were being scrutinised after referring proportionately more patients for surgery than elsewhere in the UK.

He warned that the suspension risked setting a troubling precedent for trans healthcare and wider equality protections. “The Welsh Greens are shouting loudly about this, because there’s a dangerous precedent that this decision sets for human rights,” he said.

The pause in surgeries has prompted growing concern among LGBTQ+ organisations and campaigners, who argue the uncertainty has compounded the distress already experienced by trans people facing long waits for gender-affirming healthcare.