Women’s Health Strategy for England
Debate between Baroness Benjamin and Baroness Penn
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I thank both noble Baronesses for their questions. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said that for too long the voices of women have been ignored in the healthcare system. She is absolutely right, which is why I am proud that this Government have produced the first women’s health strategy in England. It has been widely welcomed, if not overdue. We should recognise that.
The noble Baroness also said that women have not been listened to in the past. That is the feedback across the range of different experiences. That is why I am so pleased that at the heart of the development of this strategy was the call for evidence we held, which saw nearly 100,000 responses. Listening to those responses has really shaped the strategy. We are also cognisant that there may have been people who did not proactively respond to that call for evidence, so we made particular efforts to reach underserved groups who might not otherwise be heard. That is important, and it has been translated into the approach we took in the strategy.
On the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, we wanted to address a perceived ambiguity in the wording used in the statement on freedom of religion or belief and gender equality at last week’s international interministerial conference and ensure that its scope remains focused on freedom of religion and belief. A revised version of the statement was produced in light of that. I reassure the House that we remain committed to defending and promoting universal and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights, including safe abortion. This is fundamental to unlock the potential agency and freedom of women and girls in this country and across the world.
The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, asked why sexual and reproductive health, and abortion in particular, were not covered in depth in this strategy. The Department of Health and Social Care is developing an action plan to improve sexual and reproductive health, including ensuring that women can continue to access robust and high-quality abortion services. We aim to publish this later this year. I hope that addresses many of the points she raised.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, highlighted the importance of research. She drew my attention to a particular piece of work by the University of Birmingham, which I will happily take back to the department. As someone who was pregnant during the pandemic, I have personal experience of trying to navigate the guidance on whether to get a vaccine combined with the advice that I was at higher risk. That stems from the difficult problem of how to represent women and pregnant women more in medical research. That is not straightforward to solve, but we are making efforts towards it. There will be a new policy research unit in the National Institute for Health and Care Research dedicated to reproductive health. The department’s chief scientific officer, Professor Lucy Chappell, will lead a round table of researchers this autumn to explore the best ways to tackle the underrepresentation of women in research. This will include women from ethnic minority groups, older women, lesbian and bisexual women, pregnant women and disabled women. The NIHR is leading work to improve the diversity of research participants, and we wo;; continue to press ahead with that.
The noble Baroness asked about our action on menopause and our commitment to reducing the cost of accessing HRT treatment. I do not have the latest timelines on that, so I will write to her. We have established the UK Menopause Taskforce to join up and accelerate work across the UK to tackle menopause-related issues. We have also set up work to tackle access to supplies for certain HRT treatments.
On breast cancer screening, the additional money announced in the strategy is aimed at doing exactly what the noble Baroness said about addressing disparities. All the work going into addressing the NHS backlog in elective treatment is looking to close that gap between diagnosis and treatment.
I will address a few other points. On training for teachers, we have invested more than £3 million to date in supporting teachers to teach PSHE in schools. We continue to focus on that.
I will address the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, on trans people and their inclusion or otherwise in this strategy. The strategy’s aim is to improve the health of all women and girls, and we will work with NHS bodies to ensure that women are properly represented in communications and guidance and that there is appropriate use of sex-specific language to communicate matters that relate to women’s and men’s individual health issues and different biological needs. We recognise that some transgender people may experience some of the same issues—for example, transgender men perhaps needing cervical screening or menopause care—and we will ensure that our work acknowledges that. Transgender healthcare is a very important but separate issue. For example, the noble Baroness will know that the NHS is working on guidance to enable GPs to have a better understanding of the health concerns of transgender patients, which will improve their experience of primary and community care.
I will pick up one final point from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, about disparities in maternity care for black mothers or mothers from ethnic minorities. I believe a task force has been set up, the Maternity Disparities Taskforce, to look specifically at this. That is an important piece of work that I know is ongoing. I will write to both noble Baronesses in response to the other questions I have not addressed.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Government for this important announcement. I particularly welcome the aim to introduce a voluntary certificate of loss scheme to parents who have suffered a miscarriage or stillbirth before 24 weeks of pregnancy. I have a Private Member’s Bill in the House asking for this provision, so I declare an interest. This will provide comfort to millions who have experienced this type of loss, and I congratulate the charity Saying Goodbye on its work on this over the last eight years. When will the scheme be implemented? Who will administer it?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I pay tribute to the noble Baroness’s work in this area and campaigning on this issue, and to the chairs of the pregnancy loss review, Samantha Collinge and Zoe Clark-Coates. That review’s work is still ongoing, but we were able to pick up an interim recommendation from it to allow us to start work on the introduction of the certificate. I believe the NHS will implement this and is undertaking the appropriate scoping work to make sure we get the implementation right. That will be taken forward as soon as it can.