Women’s Health Outcomes

Baroness Greengross Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Greengross (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome today’s debate on women’s health outcomes and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin of Kennington, for bringing this Motion to the House today in an extraordinarily moving way.

We know that there are many conditions where women are overrepresented—for example in mental health, where 26% of young women have experienced anxiety, depression or eating disorders. We know that with gynaecological conditions it often takes seven to eight years to receive a diagnosis of endometriosis, with 40% of women needing 10 or more GP appointments before being referred to a specialist.

In one area of women’s health, I became aware late last year that there was a national shortage of widely used contraceptive preparations and hormone replacement therapy products. In response to my Written Question, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, responded that this shortage was due to

“Issues such as regulatory or manufacturing problems, problems accessing supplies of pharmaceutical raw ingredients and commercial decisions to divest certain products”,


which

“can affect the supply of medicines.”

Throughout 2020, thousands of women were not able to access their normal oral contraceptive or hormone replacement therapy products. This is one recent example of women not having access to the pharmaceutical products they regularly used, though this also happens, as we know, with various medicines that both men and women take.

I declare my interest in the register as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Bladder and Bowel Continence Care. Women are five times more likely to develop urinary incontinence than men. This is something many women feel uncomfortable talking about or raising with their GP. For many women, bladder continence issues can result in a loss of independence, as they feel unable to leave their homes unless they know there are accessible public toilets near to where they are going. Much like gynaecological conditions, issues with continence care can take time to diagnose and cannot always be treated. Much greater awareness is needed of these conditions and, in particular, how they impact on women’s lives.

My final point is to draw attention to some depressing findings from the 2020 Marmot report, about which the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, spoke so movingly just now. According to Sir Michael’s 2020 report on health disparities, women living in the most deprived 10%—

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I am afraid I am going to have to remind the noble Baroness of the time limit for Back-Bench contributions, given the number of speakers we have in this very important debate.

[Baroness Greengross (CB) [V]]

Can I finish or not?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I suggest to the noble Baroness that perhaps she is already over the time limit and that we move on to the next speaker.

[Baroness Greengross (CB) [V]]

Okay.