Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to support women recovering from surgery during childbirth in light of the increasing incidence of caesarean sections.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government and NHS England remain committed to ensuring safe, personalised, and evidence-based maternity care, grounded in informed choice.

We recognise that caesarean birth is major abdominal surgery, and that recovery can place additional physical and emotional demands on women and their families in the early weeks and months after birth. Whilst there is no specific routine, long-term follow up post caesarean section, all women who have given birth should be offered a six to eight week postnatal consultation with a general practitioner covering both physical and mental health.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guideline on caesarean birth, reference code NG192, makes clear that women require structured postnatal support following surgery, including effective pain management, early mobilisation, monitoring of wound healing and complications, and support with infant feeding and care.

The National Health Service does not attribute the increase in the number of caesarean births to a single cause, as it is influenced by many factors, including women choosing to have a caesarean birth, higher rates of pre-existing health conditions, and more pregnancies involving complications.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the suitability of current postnatal care practices in light of the increasing incidence of caesarean sections; and what plans they have, if any, to reform these practices.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government and NHS England remain committed to ensuring safe, personalised, and evidence-based maternity care, grounded in informed choice.

We recognise that caesarean birth is major abdominal surgery, and that recovery can place additional physical and emotional demands on women and their families in the early weeks and months after birth. Whilst there is no specific routine, long-term follow up post caesarean section, all women who have given birth should be offered a six to eight week postnatal consultation with a general practitioner covering both physical and mental health.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guideline on caesarean birth, reference code NG192, makes clear that women require structured postnatal support following surgery, including effective pain management, early mobilisation, monitoring of wound healing and complications, and support with infant feeding and care.

The National Health Service does not attribute the increase in the number of caesarean births to a single cause, as it is influenced by many factors, including women choosing to have a caesarean birth, higher rates of pre-existing health conditions, and more pregnancies involving complications.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the increasing incidence of caesarean sections; and whether they consider that increase to be the result of patient choice or the state of maternity services.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government and NHS England remain committed to ensuring safe, personalised, and evidence-based maternity care, grounded in informed choice.

We recognise that caesarean birth is major abdominal surgery, and that recovery can place additional physical and emotional demands on women and their families in the early weeks and months after birth. Whilst there is no specific routine, long-term follow up post caesarean section, all women who have given birth should be offered a six to eight week postnatal consultation with a general practitioner covering both physical and mental health.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guideline on caesarean birth, reference code NG192, makes clear that women require structured postnatal support following surgery, including effective pain management, early mobilisation, monitoring of wound healing and complications, and support with infant feeding and care.

The National Health Service does not attribute the increase in the number of caesarean births to a single cause, as it is influenced by many factors, including women choosing to have a caesarean birth, higher rates of pre-existing health conditions, and more pregnancies involving complications.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the increasing incidence of caesarean sections on childbearing families in the early weeks and months after birth.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government and NHS England remain committed to ensuring safe, personalised, and evidence-based maternity care, grounded in informed choice.

We recognise that caesarean birth is major abdominal surgery, and that recovery can place additional physical and emotional demands on women and their families in the early weeks and months after birth. Whilst there is no specific routine, long-term follow up post caesarean section, all women who have given birth should be offered a six to eight week postnatal consultation with a general practitioner covering both physical and mental health.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guideline on caesarean birth, reference code NG192, makes clear that women require structured postnatal support following surgery, including effective pain management, early mobilisation, monitoring of wound healing and complications, and support with infant feeding and care.

The National Health Service does not attribute the increase in the number of caesarean births to a single cause, as it is influenced by many factors, including women choosing to have a caesarean birth, higher rates of pre-existing health conditions, and more pregnancies involving complications.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to support childbearing families during the postnatal recovery period following births involving major surgery.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government and NHS England remain committed to ensuring safe, personalised, and evidence-based maternity care, grounded in informed choice.

We recognise that caesarean birth is major abdominal surgery, and that recovery can place additional physical and emotional demands on women and their families in the early weeks and months after birth. Whilst there is no specific routine, long-term follow up post caesarean section, all women who have given birth should be offered a six to eight week postnatal consultation with a general practitioner covering both physical and mental health.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guideline on caesarean birth, reference code NG192, makes clear that women require structured postnatal support following surgery, including effective pain management, early mobilisation, monitoring of wound healing and complications, and support with infant feeding and care.

The National Health Service does not attribute the increase in the number of caesarean births to a single cause, as it is influenced by many factors, including women choosing to have a caesarean birth, higher rates of pre-existing health conditions, and more pregnancies involving complications.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage on 9 February (HL Deb col 4GC), whether water pollution, flooding and heatwaves are environmental factors under section 45 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government has intentionally defined “environmental factors” broadly under section 45 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026.

Rather than setting out an exhaustive list, the act provides flexibility for strategic authorities, combined authorities, combined county authorities, and mayors to consider the full range of environmental factors that may be relevant when exercising their functions.

This can include matters such as water pollution, flooding, and heatwaves, where these are relevant to their functions and responsibilities.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many hysterectomies were performed by NHS England in the most recent year for which data is available; and what steps they are taking to ensure patients provide informed consent.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

No national assessment has been made. Hysterectomy is the established medical term for the surgical removal of the uterus. A change to an established term of this kind would require agreement across the national and international professional and classification bodies.

As with all procedures, healthcare professionals are expected to fully explain the procedure in advance, including expected symptoms, side effects, and risks. These conversations should be undertaken using a shared decision-making approach that ensures individuals are supported to make decisions that are right for them. NHS England has published guidance on the use of shared decision making, which is available on the NHS England website, under personalised care.

As part of the Renewed Women’s Health Strategy, we will co-produce with women a standard of care for the delivery of gynaecological procedures, ensuring all women give informed consent and are offered a choice of pain relief.

In 2024/25, 44,348 hysterectomy procedures were conducted in English National Health Service hospitals and as part of English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the term "hysterectomy" on patient understanding of the procedure prior to giving informed consent; and if no such assessment has been made, what plans they have to conduct one.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

No national assessment has been made. Hysterectomy is the established medical term for the surgical removal of the uterus. A change to an established term of this kind would require agreement across the national and international professional and classification bodies.

As with all procedures, healthcare professionals are expected to fully explain the procedure in advance, including expected symptoms, side effects, and risks. These conversations should be undertaken using a shared decision-making approach that ensures individuals are supported to make decisions that are right for them. NHS England has published guidance on the use of shared decision making, which is available on the NHS England website, under personalised care.

As part of the Renewed Women’s Health Strategy, we will co-produce with women a standard of care for the delivery of gynaecological procedures, ensuring all women give informed consent and are offered a choice of pain relief.

In 2024/25, 44,348 hysterectomy procedures were conducted in English National Health Service hospitals and as part of English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the Women's Health Strategy’s commitment to tackling medical misogyny includes a review of the language used in women's surgical procedures

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Renewed Women’s Health Strategy for England, published in April 2026, places tackling medical misogyny at its core, recognising that women have been dismissed for far too long and that this must change. The strategy takes a systemic approach to addressing medical misogyny and ensuring women’s voices and experiences shape care. This includes putting women’s lived experience, including pain and whether they felt listened to, at the heart of how National Health Service quality is defined, measured, and improved.

Authority over established clinical terms sits at several levels. International bodies maintain the formal terminology, classification, and coding systems used in clinical records, including the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms and the World Health Organisation's International Classification of Diseases.

At a national level, NHS England, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the royal colleges, coding bodies, and professional societies set the terms used in guidance, patient information, pathways, and records. A change to established clinical terms would require agreement across these national and international professional and classification bodies.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have plans to consider replacing "hysterectomy" with "uterectomy" in NHS patient materials.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

There are currently no plans to replace the term ‘hysterectomy’ with ‘uterectomy’ in National Health Service patient materials.

International bodies maintain the formal terminology, classification, and coding systems used in clinical records, including the Systematised Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms and the World Health Organisation's International Classification of Diseases.

At a national level, NHS England, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the royal colleges, coding bodies, and professional societies set the terms used in guidance, patient information, pathways, and records. NHS England is not able to rename the procedure across consent forms, clinical guidelines, records, and coding as a change to an established clinical term of this kind would require agreement across the national and international professional and classification bodies.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to review the terminology used in NHS patient materials and clinical guidelines relating to the surgical removal of the uterus to remove historically biased terminology.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

International bodies maintain the formal terminology, classification, and coding systems used in clinical records, including the Systematised Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms and the World Health Organisation's International Classification of Diseases.

At national level, NHS England, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the royal colleges, coding bodies, and professional societies set the terms used in guidance, patient information, pathways, and records. NHS England is not able to rename procedures across consent forms, clinical guidelines, records, and coding as changes to established clinical terms would require agreement across the national and international professional and classification bodies.