Tortoise Investigates

The broom cupboard | The Tavistock Ep 2

Polly Carmichael became the director of the Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock in 2009. “I remember our office was literally a room that had probably been a broom cupboard at one stage”, she recalls. But the decision in 2011 to start offering puberty blockers to under-16s, and in 2016 to widen the professionals who could refer a child to GIDS had a major impact. The numbers of people on the waiting list ticked inexorably up, until the clinic felt it could barely cope.  Listen to the full series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists, <a href="https://tortoisemedia.onelink.me/Cx9d/c770bd87" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">download the free Tortoise audio app</a>. For early and ad-free access to all our investigative series and daily and weekly shows, subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts. If you’d like to further support slow journalism and help us build a different kind of newsroom, do consider donating to Tortoise at <a href="http://tortoisemedia.com/support-us" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">tortoisemedia.com/support-us</a>. Your contributions allow us to investigate, campaign and explore, and to build a newsroom that is responsible and sustainable. Hosted on Acast. See <a href="https://acast.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:grey;" target="_blank">acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

Welcome to the Tortoise Investigates feed. It’s the home for the best of our podcast series, where you can find all our chart-topping, award-winning stories in one place.  We’ve covered everything from extraordinary tales of deception to suspicious deaths to one mother’s decades-long fight against the police.  Our journalists cover a wide range of stories but there is a thread that ties them all together – in every series, you’ll hear us going deep on a story, taking our time to investigate, guided by the public interest and the truths that, as journalists, we think need to be uncovered.  So, we hope there’s in this feed you’ll like, and we’ll be updating it regularly with all of our best and most ambitious stories. To be the first to find out when we launch a show, follow the feed. To get early, ad-free access to all our investigations subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can find out more about Tortoise: Download the Tortoise app - for a listening experience curated by our journalists Subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts for early access and ad-free content Become a member and get access to all of Tortoise's premium audio offerings and more If you want to get in touch with us directly about a story, or tell us more about the stories you want to hear about contact hello@tortoisemedia.com Hosted on Acast. See <a href="https://acast.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:grey;" target="_blank">acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.