Left out on the Streeting and Miles behind

It’s encouraging to see Wes Streeting and the Department of Health finally acknowledge something LGBTQ+ communities have known and lived for decades: inequality in the NHS is real, and it’s harming lives.

We welcome the attention. After all, recognition matters. But if this review is going to lead to real change, it can’t be done without us. LGBTQ+ communities must be included from the very beginning not just as case studies, but as co-creators of the solutions.

Right now, there’s no published plan for how our voices will shape this process. That’s a problem. Because asking services that don’t understand our needs to explain why they don’t, without the right data, training, or relationships, is setting the review up to fail. Without lived experience, this risks becoming another well-meaning document that explains away poor decisions, rather than fixing them.

And while we’re here: we hope Welsh Health Secretary Jeremy Miles follows suit. With both he and Wes Streeting being out gay politicians, you’d hope there’d be a shared understanding of why it’s vital to centre our communities in this work. Visibility matters, but voice is where real leadership happens.

The good news is LGBTQ+ people are already leading. Across the UK and here in Wales, we’ve built mutual aid networks, peer-led mental health support, HIV services, and trans health advocacy; most of it with little recognition and even less funding. We don’t just have needs. We have solutions. And we’re ready to share them.

What’s needed now is co-production not top-down consultation. That means involving LGBTQ+ people in the design and direction of this work, not just asking for feedback once decisions are already made.

At Queeraeth, we’re working on something to support that shift, a bold new project to close the queer data gap and help services see, hear, and respond to who we really are. Keep an eye out. It’s coming soon.

To both Health Secretaries: this is your chance to do things differently. Don’t analyse us from a distance. Stand with us. Include us. Work with us.

Because if you want to stop excluding us, the answer is simple: start including us.