HSE Library: Gender Healthcare Public Consultation: Introduction

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Welcome

The HSE is developing an updated Model of Care for gender healthcare services in Ireland, with an aim of providing safe and effective healthcare for those seeking healthcare services.

For further information please visit the HSE Gender Healthcare website.

This updated Model of Care is required given the ongoing changes in gender healthcare, including, but not limited to, a developing evidence base, increasing numbers of people being referred to services, and a wider range of clinical needs in the people being referred.

The purpose of the HSE Model of Care for Gender Healthcare is to provide a clinical framework for safe and effective delivery of gender healthcare services in Ireland.

It is not intended to define what it means to be trans or gender diverse.

Two main elements will form the basis for the development of the updated HSE Model of Care:

Evidence base – a review of the research and other available clinical data relating to gender healthcare.
Experience base – an understanding of the experience of service users, their families, healthcare workers working in gender healthcare, and other stakeholders.

Evaluation of the evidence base is a key element of developing any Model of Care. In the development of our Model of Care, we have begun our review of the evidence base with two initial questions (knowing that additional clinical questions may arise as work progresses).

What clinical needs are known to exist in the population that are attending, or may attend, gender healthcare services?

What are the clinical outcomes of the clinical interventions used in medical transition (such as hormone therapy)?

To answer the first question, we have worked with HSE Library Services to find as much evidence as we could on co-existing clinical needs in gender diverse people. This work is registered as a systematic review on PROSPERO under registration number CRD42024596562

At this stage, after reviewing more than 2000 papers and other sources of clinical evidence, we have included 168 items. The included studies are available on this webpage under the ‘References sourced’ tab.

Note: While initially registered as a systematic review, the number of articles already identified is substantial (N = 168), even prior to including additional studies submitted by the public. Given this volume, the research team may present the findings as a scoping review to better address the research question and comprehensively map the available evidence, with revisions to the PROSPERO-registered protocol made in accordance with PRISMA-ScR guidelines.

We are now inviting members of the public to review the included evidence

If there are any papers that you think we might have missed, then please submit the details via the ‘Suggest a peer review reference' tab.

Any clinical data that has been published as an academic paper in a peer reviewed journal will be reviewed and screened for inclusion, in line with the inclusion and exclusion criteria in the PROSPERO registered protocol available on www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero under registration number CRD42024596562.

This public consultation will remain open until August 31^st 2025. At that point, we will review any submissions and complete the review. Updates on our progress can be found on the HSE website.