Funding for sex change operations will not be scrapped from next year, Hounslow Primary Care Trust has announced.

The PCT's earlier proposal to cut the funds for gender reassignment treatments because they were deemed non-essential' drew strong criticism from a charity representing British transsexuals.

The Gender Trust blasted the move saying it "would put medicine back 30 years in its understanding of what transsexualism is"

But now medical officials have said that the treatments were put on a list of those to be cut by mistake.

A Hounslow PCT spokesperson said: "Gender reassignment was listed as an excluded service in error in Hounslow Primary Care Trust's consultation document, Commissioning Intentions 2007-08.

"Hounslow Primary Care Trust has no intention to discontinue the current level of service provision for gender reassignment."

Rebecca Dittman, chairman of the board of trustees at the Gender Trust, said: "We have received a revised draft of that document. We have written to the trust thanking them for clarifying the situation."

But she added that her charity was still awaiting confirmation of the services are currently provided by the PCT.

Gender reassignment consists of hormonal and surgical treatments to allow people to adjust their bodies to match their internal sense of being either male or female.

Other non-essential' operations such as tattoo removals, stomach stapling and breast reductions still look set to lose NHS funding in the next financial year as Hounslow's PCT struggles to balance its books.

A final decision on the treatments was made on February 1.