Women’s Health Outcomes

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin of Kennington, on securing this debate, which feels particularly timely as we mark the 73rd birthday of the NHS this week. Women were undoubtedly among its most immediate beneficiaries, as the expansion of maternity care put an end to many of the horror stories of obstetric disasters, post-delivery haemorrhage and infections needlessly killing mothers after childbirth, for want of sterile surroundings. We have come a long way since then, but there is still some way to go.

The Library’s helpful briefing makes clear a range of healthcare areas in which women experience worse outcomes than men, including mental health. The Mental Health Foundation reports a strong relationship between women’s physical and mental health, with 85% of its surveyed members reporting that menstruation, menopause, pregnancy, fertility pressures and contraception impacted negatively on their mental health.

I will focus on eating disorders—serious mental health disorders that can affect anyone, but which are much more prevalent in women than men. A recent Finnish study found that one in six female adolescents and young adults met the criteria for an eating disorder, compared with one in 40 males. The pandemic has seen eating disorders spike, with demand for services up 200% in some areas and waiting lists at record highs. Those with high-BMI eating disorders cannot access treatment, since clinical pathways for binge eating are currently closed, as the NHS struggles to cope with the increase in low-weight disorders.

This is nothing short of a public health crisis, yet it receives neither the attention nor the funding it warrants. The best-known eating disorder, anorexia nervosa, has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder in the UK, yet the last available dataset comparing all mental health related research grants from major UK funders revealed that eating disorders received just 1% of the near £500 million available over the four-year period surveyed.

It is hard not to conclude that eating disorders suffer a triple whammy of perception and misperception: first, they are seen as a niche problem largely affecting a middle-class elite, which is not true; secondly, they are mental health conditions and, despite claims to the contrary, we have yet to live up to our promise to give mental and physical health parity of esteem; and finally, above all, they are seen as women’s issues.

Earlier this year, in the other place, the Minister Nadine Dorries said,

“for generations women have lived with a healthcare system that is designed by men, for men.”—[Official Report, Commons, 8/3/21; col. 535.]

Women continue to suffer as a result. I look forward to the forthcoming women’s health strategy and hope that it has some effect in redressing this age-old imbalance.