UK healthcare is officially failing women

The report told us what you’d expect: that damaging taboos are preventing us from seeking help and reinforcing beliefs that debilitating symptoms aren’t out of the ordinary, that we rarely feel heard, and that services for female-specific illnesses are of lower priority compared to others.

Speaking from personal experience, this is unsurprising.

More so when you look at the stats, one example being that a woman’s pain is more likely to be seen as having an emotional or psychological cause, rather than a bodily or biological one.

This, of course, is exacerbated by the chronic underfunding of reproductive research – for every £1 spent by the NHS caring for cancer, it spends 12p on research, but for every £1 spent by caring for reproductive issues, only one pence is spent on research – as well as failure to include women in clinical trials.

‘The responses from the call for evidence were in many ways as expected, particularly with regards to women’s priorities, but in some places the revelations were shocking,’ says Maria Caulfield, the Minister for Women’s Health.

‘It is not right that over three quarters of women feel the healthcare service has not listened. This must be addressed.’

And seemingly, addressed it will be, because the government has just vowed to ‘reset the dial on women’s health’ as a result of the consultation.

How? With plans to set out what it’s calling a ‘Vision for Women’s Health,’ which recognises the system-wide changes required to close the gender health gap that still sees us carrying the burdens of historic injustices within the healthcare system.

A long overdue step in the right direction, it will focus on six ‘priority areas’ and hopefully ensure going forward that those of us with wombs are deservedly supported throughout our lives as we evolve and develop.