Helen Webberley's clinic was accused of using AI to prescribe
Lucy Johnston said:
“you have been accused of not offering those multidisciplinary teams and of using AI to prescribe.”
AI prescribing sounds alarming and plausible given the rapid spread of AI tools in healthcare administration, and the accusation of missing multidisciplinary teams echoes a real regulatory requirement in UK gender services.
An accusation without a named source, a regulatory finding, or any supporting evidence is not a fact: it is a claim, and the two are not the same thing. The detail about AI is worth being precise on, because AI cannot prescribe; prescribing is a legal act performed by a licensed clinician, and no software changes that. The multidisciplinary team requirement is a real standard in NHS gender services, and a reasonable question to put to any private provider, but raising it as an accusation is very different from establishing that it applies, was required, and was breached in the specific circumstances being discussed. People who are already navigating a hostile landscape to find care they need deserve better than unverified allegations presented as though the case is closed, because the real cost of that framing is not reputational: it is another person delaying or abandoning treatment that could help them.
What I said at the time:
“Well you can't use AI to prescribe. I think every company and every forward thinking organisation in the world at the moment is using AI to support business mechanisms.”
People seeking legitimate private gender healthcare who may be deterred by unsubstantiated allegations about the safety of services.