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The number of children seeking gender treatment on the National Health Service has increased by more than 1,000% over five years, with doctors fearing the NHS is being left overwhelmed.

NHS bosses have revealed that while between 2009 and 2010 just 97 children were helped by the NHS’s Gender Identity Disorder Service, last year a whopping 1,013 received treatment.

Taxpayers shelled out £2,674,791 for the treatments, according to The Sun.

Only London’s Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust provides treatment to those dealing with gender identity disorder under the age of 18.

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However the trust also has clinics in Exeter, Brighton and Leeds.

Typically, families of those dealing with gender identity disorder receive counselling and in some cases the children are given hormone blocking prescriptions.

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And experts in the field are concerned that the NHS may be overwhelmed by the increased demand.

The Gender Identity Research and Education Society claim that the NHS is "not really geared up and trained to help meet this growing need for medical care".

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Dr Polly Carmichael, director of the Gender Identity Development Service, said that the increase over the last five years in children receiving treatment is "extraordinary".

She added: "It has become very difficult now to predict whether referrals will carry on rising.”