Endometriosis and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

Christian Wakeford Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 328570, relating to research into endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. Before I begin, I would like to take a moment to remember and pay tribute to our friend and colleague, Sir David Amess. Among the many worthy campaigns he fought for, Sir David was a vocal champion of women suffering from endometriosis. He launched the all-party parliamentary group on endometriosis in 2018, and he chaired it with the intention of raising awareness of the condition and the need to investigate how those who suffer from endometriosis can get support. I am certain that Sir David, ever the advocate, would have spoken in this debate. By continuing to speak out on this issue, we honour his memory.

For convenience, I will read the petition into Hansard:

“Endometriosis and PCOS are two gynaecological conditions which both affect 10% of women worldwide, but both are, in terms of research and funding, incredibly under prioritised. This petition is calling for more funding, to enable for new, extensive and thorough research into female health issues.”

The petition was open for six months and gained over 100,000 signatures, 200 of which were from my own wonderful constituency of Coventry North West. This is not the first time we have had a debate on endometriosis, nor is it the first time that polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, has been brought up in Parliament. The Government’s lack of action in response to previous debates has compelled over 100,000 people to bring the lack of funding for research into these diseases to our attention.

The opening speaker in a debate does not have to speak in favour of or in opposition to a petition. They can choose to outline arguments dispassionately and open up the debate. I will not be doing that. I want to throw my full support behind this important issue. As a healthcare professional in the NHS myself, who has worked with endometriosis and PCOS patients, it is heartbreaking that we still need to plead for research money for two diseases that affect one in 10 women in the United Kingdom. That is over 3 million women.

To advocate for the petition, I will first try to clear up some crucial misconceptions about both diseases. I will also outline the specific actions that the Government must take to support women who suffer from them. Before I do that, I want to briefly explain what endometriosis and PCOS are. PCOS is the most common endocrine disorder in women, affecting one in 10, although it disproportionately impacts black and south Asian women. It is characterised by abnormal hormone production in the ovaries and can, in many but not all cases, cause women to develop cysts. Endometriosis is a condition where cells similar to those in the lining of the uterus are found elsewhere in the body. It affects one in 10 women, although, again, it disproportionately impacts black and south Asian women. Medical jargon aside, both diseases can affect women’s reproductive organs and can, if severe enough, cause fertility issues as one of many side effects.

However, after spending the last few weeks speaking with women suffering from one or both diseases, it has become clear that one of the greatest misconceptions surrounding endometriosis and PCOS is that they are often considered only to be fertility diseases. Thinking of the diseases primarily as barriers to pregnancy or simply as making women’s periods more painful is a gross oversimplification and is, in many cases, totally inaccurate. Both diseases vary widely in severity and in the way they manifest. For example, 12% of endometriosis cases target women’s lungs. Both conditions cause symptoms other than chronic pain. PCOS can cause obesity, excess facial hair and chronic acne—deeply stigmatising symptoms that can shatter a young woman’s confidence and have a debilitating effect on her mental health.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that this medical gaslighting is arguably the biggest issue? Patients go to their GP—the medical practitioner they trust the most—and are told it is just a bad period. That is what we really need to change. Funding is a separate argument. That is the main problem we need to overcome before we can truly tackle the issues.

[Taiwo Owatemi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making an important point, but I think what that highlights is the need to ensure that endometriosis and PCOS are included on the medical curriculum for GPs and healthcare professionals. That is why funding is so important: to make that difference.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) for securing and leading this important debate. More importantly, I also thank the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) for her own personal story, which I found very moving. In common with everyone else in the Chamber, it would be remiss of me not to mention Sir David Amess and the very important work that he did as chair of the all-party parliamentary group.

As we have heard, endo affects one in 10 women in the UK. It is a common, chronic, complex and fluctuating condition that brings about unimaginable pain. Like many Members here, I first found out about endo shortly after I was elected; I had never heard of it before. It was in a constituency surgery, where Katie came to meet me. She talked about her debilitating pain, the impact on her mental health and her endo sisters who were taking their own lives because of the pain while awaiting treatment. She described the gaslighting she had to go through—“It’s just a bad period.” That is just the norm for anyone suffering from endo, and we should all be ashamed of that.

It is clear from today’s debate, from previous debates and from constituents across the UK that, despite the severity of the condition, it is still taboo to talk about women’s health and gynaecological conditions. I remember speaking in last year’s debate on the Cumberlege report. It is a damning and concerning fact that we talk about and listen to women’s health issues only when men talk about them. Many in this Chamber have been giving their own personal stories, and I fear that we are at risk of still not truly understanding the issue because men are not talking about it. We spend so much more money on erectile dysfunction than on endometriosis—that shows where our priorities are.

Workplace attitudes often do not help. We have heard the stories over and over again in the House when it comes to endo: women are often not believed or supported by doctors, employers or even loved ones. It is shocking that in 21st-century Britain women are still being dismissed as lazy, unreliable, dishonest and a nuisance in the workplace. In the 2020 BBC survey on endo, almost all the women responded by saying that they felt that their careers had been hampered by having the disease.

If appropriate workplace support for employees suffering from endo and polycystic ovary syndrome is to be obtained, we need business leaders and managers to be equipped with the necessary information and knowledge to be compassionate when dealing with these cases. We should begin by encouraging employers to become endo-friendly, making sure that there is access to support for all those who suffer from it.

The current definition has been highlighted by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy). Unfortunately, endo sisters do not qualify for statutory sick pay because the condition is long-lasting and chronic. That is something we can quite easily and quickly fix. We have already heard that before covid it took, on average, eight years to be diagnosed with endometriosis. That backlog will only have become worse. We need to factor in GPs’ ability to understand the condition better. We can do so much more, and we have a duty to do so.

In conclusion, endometriosis costs the UK £8.2 billion per year through treatment, healthcare costs and the impact on work and employment. We need to deal with this, and not just from a financial perspective but from a moral one.

[David Mundell (in the Chair)]

I am going to call Barbara Keeley and then I will ask Alex Davies-Jones to make the final Back-Bench contribution.