On 20 May under the headline “Trust’s CQC rating hit by transgender issue”, HSJ published an article about the Care Quality Commission’s rating of West London Mental Health Trust having been affected by gaps in the data provided to the CQC as part of minimum dataset requirements.

The implication of this article was that trust management had failed to address the issue properly, and that this had resulted in the downgrading of the trust’s overall CQC rating and also impacted on the trust’s CQC registration. Neither of these points is correct.

The piece also contained a number of smaller inaccuracies, including describing Dame Sally Powell as trust chair when she is in fact a non-executive director.

HSJ accepts that this representation of the facts was misleading.

The trust liaised with both NHS London and the CQC diligently to agree the exceptions to the minimum dataset , based on the legitimate objections raised by patients at its gender identity clinic.

HSJ regrets any suggestion that the CQC’s assessment of WLMHT was in any way affected by this, and that the trust’s new board and management team had in any way been negligent.

We apologise to the trust and for any damage to its reputation that we may have inadvertently caused.