Endometriosis and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

Jackie Doyle-Price Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Taiwo Owatemi]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising an important point. We absolutely need funding for holistic care for both endometriosis and PCOS, especially for mental health support.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is articulating the case extremely well. Does she share my opinion that one reason the conditions are looked at only from the perspective of their impact on fertility is that the medical establishment too often views women’s biology purely from the perspective of incubating babies, and does not think enough about the impact on general wellbeing?

[Taiwo Owatemi]

I thank the hon. Member for raising such an important point, which I will come to later. I know from speaking to many healthcare professionals that some are passionate about endometriosis and PCOS but would like more funding and support, so that their colleagues and all within the medical profession get the necessary medical education in their curriculum.

Endometriosis and PCOS are about so much more than having difficulty conceiving, but funding decisions made by Whitehall treat them as though they are not. That is why it is so upsetting, but unsurprising, that the Government response to the petition discussed funding for fertility treatments. In fact, when most young women start to see symptoms at puberty, pregnancy is the furthest thing from their mind.

With that in mind, I will talk about a constituent of mine, a 14-year-old girl who was ostracised and relentlessly bullied by her peers for her excessive facial hair and acne and for weight-related reasons. She experienced such debilitating pain in her lungs and lower abdomen that she was hospitalised during a GCSE exam. After five years of calling hospitals, three painful exploratory surgeries, countless GP appointments and several specialist referrals, she was finally diagnosed with endometriosis and PCOS. The only treatment her GP could offer her was generic birth control pills, which no evidence-based studies confirm as definitive treatment for either disease.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

May I associate myself with your words, Mr Mundell, and with the words of the two previous speakers in regard to Sir David Amess, who was a great personal friend of mine? I was so happy to be able to work with him on this cause. He brought to it his characteristic passion and commitment, and frankly, he was good at keeping us all on the ball. We will miss his leadership, but we will endeavour to make sure that the points he campaigned for are delivered. As has been mentioned, he took up this issue when he was visited by his constituent, Carla Cressy. The cause is one of the main beneficiaries from the sales of his book, “Ayes & Ears”, which is available in all good bookshops; I encourage everyone to make their donation there.

As the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) has outlined, Sir David led an inquiry for the all-party group on endometriosis. As many as 11,000 members of the public got involved in it, and that is quite an achievement for an all-party group. It is a testament to the fact that he always used good publicity to draw attention to the issues that he really cared about.

For a condition that affects 10% of women, there has been staggeringly little focus on endometriosis. If something affected 10% of men, would we be having this kind of debate? I think not. We really owe it to all the women who suffer for years with the most debilitating and chronic pain and disability because of this condition. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) for mentioning the obsessive focus on fertility, because the truth of the matter is that women who suffer from endometriosis start to suffer from it the moment they start their periods.

We could do so much if we had a greater understanding of what a healthy period is. We are all brought up to think, “This is your lot in life; it’s all quite normal.” We might be struggling with the most debilitating pain and thinking that everybody else is going through the same thing, when in fact they are not and we are suffering from very unhealthy periods. We need much more understanding not just in the medical profession, but among girls, so they can be more alive to problems and not wait eight years for a diagnosis. As the hon. Lady said, endometriosis is often diagnosed only when women are trying to get pregnant, by which time so much damage might have been done. If the condition had been diagnosed earlier, treatment could have been given to alleviate it.

We often talk about funding, and one of the biggest challenges in the NHS is not so much the quantum of funding but whether we spend it wisely. If we gave people tools to look after their conditions and enable them to know when they are suffering from ill health, we would reduce the amount that the NHS has to spend on the condition. It is a no-brainer. I am pleased to see the Minister in her place. She has had to listen to me bang on about these issues many times—I never miss an opportunity to beat Ministers over the head when it comes to women’s health—but I know she gets it.

We need to think properly about the wellbeing of women, and the impact that their biology and gynaecology have on wellbeing, and we must think beyond childbirth and pregnancy. Only last year Baroness Cumberlege produced her report “First Do No Harm”, one of the headline conclusions of which was that women are not heard. When women seek medical advice, they are belittled, diminished, shunted along and told, “This is all very normal.” That must stop, because women are important. Women will have healthy pregnancies if they get support earlier. We will all be better off, because we will have less work absence, a more productive economy and less demand on the NHS. It is a no-brainer. I ask the Minister for more research into endometriosis and more awareness so that people can be diagnosed earlier.

[David Mundell (in the Chair)]

I will now impose a formal time limit of three and a half minutes on speeches.