Comment EDITOR’S COMMENTwith LOUISE FRAMPTON THE CLINICAL SERVICES JOURNAL Editor


Louise Frampton louiseframpton@stepcomms.com Technical Editor Kate Woodhead Guest Features Writer Mona Guckian Fisher Journal Administration


Katy Cockle katycockle@stepcomms.com Design Steven Dillon Business Manager


James Scrivens jamesscrivens@stepcomms.com Senior Sales Executive


Adam Yates adamyates@stepcomms.com


Publisher Geoff King geoffking@stepcomms.com


Publishing Director Trevor Moon trevormoon@stepcomms.com


Calls for action on women’s health


The annual International Day of Action for Women’s Health was recently held on May 28. This day of action is organised by women and health organisations globally to educate people about women’s health and rights. In this edition, we explore some of the key issues facing women in the UK – including the need to close the diagnostic gaps in women’s healthcare. A report from the Medical Technology Group has also warned that widespread failures to collect data and monitor best practice in gynaecology services are leaving women facing longer delays to diagnosis and treatment. In addition, there are reported disparities in medical research – in 2020, only 5% of global research and development (R&D) funding was allocated to women’s health research. (Source: ‘Funding research on women’s health’. Nat Rev Bioeng, 2024). There is still a lot of work to be done to tackle inequalities in health for women. The UK


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dropped from 20th to 26th place (out of 38) in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on female life expectancy between 2000 and 2022. This compares with a drop from 14th to 19th place for male life expectancy during the same period. (Source: Health Foundation). Healthy life expectancy among women fell by 2.5 years between 2019 to 2021 and 2022 to 2024, while women in England spend more of their lives in poor health compared to men (source: Office for National Statistics). In April, the Government published itsRenewed Women’s Health Strategy for England. It pointed out that performance data shows that “the NHS is failing women badly.” There are major challenges in gynaecology care - where average waits are 15 weeks, up from an average of 6.4 weeks in 2018. Misdiagnosis of heart attack and undertreatment of some risk factors for cardiovascular disease is more common among women, while the average time from first seeing a doctor with symptoms to an official endometriosis diagnosis in the UK is about 9 years and 4 months. Working-class women and women from ethnic minority backgrounds are being failed most of all, however. The life expectancy gap at birth for women in the most deprived areas, compared with the most affluent, is 8.4 years. To tackle these issues, the Government has pledged a wide range of measures. Some of these include: l Establishing the women’s voices partnership by 2027 – a new space for organisations representing women to inform national decision making.


l The development of PREMs, and where appropriate PROMs, for core women’s health pathways over the next 5 years, starting with gynaecological outpatient procedures.


l Reducing variation in how GPs listen to and respond to women, using GP Patient Survey data to launch a quality improvement programme within 2 years to help GPs identify problems.


l Within 3 years, co-produce with women standards of care for the delivery of gynaecological procedures such as hysteroscopy, ensuring all women give informed consent and are offered a choice of pain relief.


The strategy brings a welcome focus on healthcare inequalities and women, across the UK, will be watching closely to see whether these plans are translated into impactful action. It will require a major cultural shift, however. A survey by Endometriosis UK found that, while seeking medical help with symptoms prior to diagnosis, 83% of respondents reported being told by a healthcare practitioner that they were “making a fuss about nothing”, that their symptoms were normal, or experienced similar dismissal. This is an increase compared with previous surveys. Women shouldn’t have to wait over 9 years to have their concerns and pain recognised. These delays are not about a COVID backlog, a shortage of resources, or even difficulty in diagnosing ambiguous symptoms. Let’s be clear, this is about deep-rooted bias – unconscious or otherwise. It shouldn’t be so hard for women to have their voices heard.


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