Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Owen and Maria Caulfield

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

14. What steps he is taking to improve healthcare for women.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

This is the first Government to produce a women’s health strategy in England. We are making huge progress on the eight priorities in our first year, from introducing the hormone replacement therapy pre-payment certificate, which is reducing the cost of HRT for women, to the £25 million roll-out of women’s health hubs across the country. We will be announcing our second-year priorities in due course.

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank the hon. Lady for her work in this space. She is campaigning hard on this issue. I reassure her that osteoporosis is in the women’s health strategy and is a priority area for us. We are already working to make sure that women’s vitamin D status is known, and to make sure that we fill gaps. NHS England is expanding fracture services for high-risk women with osteoporosis, and it is working to prevent falls. The women’s health ambassador is raising the profile of osteoporosis so that women who are at higher risk can take action to prevent fractures and falls in the first place.

[Sarah Owen]

Women too often struggle with needless pain through standard but invasive procedures, such as hysteroscopies and intrauterine device fittings, offered without any pain relief. Our pain is being misunderstood and ignored. How much unnecessary pain must Ministers see women endure before the Government finally deliver on the pain management promised in the women’s health strategy? And why is this a 10-year ambition instead of a more immediate one?

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and let me also pay tribute to the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown), who has campaigned hard in this space. I met a group of women to discuss painful hysteroscopies just a few weeks ago. This is a priority in the women’s health strategy, as the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) said. We are working with the royal college to update its guidelines, because a lot of these issues are associated with women’s consent, the provision of information before these procedures, and women knowing that they can have them under a local or general anaesthetic and can also ask for pain control. This is not working in practice, which is why it is a priority in the women’s health strategy.

International Women’s Day

Debate between Sarah Owen and Maria Caulfield

Thursday 9th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

I have listened intently to the debate, and it is an honour to be able serve alongside such fantastic female representatives on both sides of the House. The Minister is talking about eradicating sexual and domestic violence from society. Does she agree that we should not be rewarding, in any way, any perpetrators of that sort of abuse and violence?

[Maria Caulfield]

I absolutely agree. As I have said, that is why we included violence against women and girls in the women’s health strategy, and as we approach the first anniversary of the strategy, I am keen for us to move towards making that our priority for the second year, working across Government. I am happy to work across parties as well, because this is such an important issue. Despite all the strategies, plans and—let us be fair—significant funding, we are still not making progress in the areas in which we want to make it. We have been presented with many images, but I was particularly struck by what was said by the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) about the way in which language is used to describe both female victims and their perpetrators, which suggests that an offence of that kind can be justified—that it simply happened, that it was a mistake, and that it was not all that significant. That has to change, which means changing the culture as well as creating the infrastructure to support it. I am keen for us to make progress on that in the next 12 months.

Baby Loss Awareness Week

Debate between Sarah Owen and Maria Caulfield

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

My right hon. Friend is right that there has to be a whole family, cross-departmental approach, which I hope we can take forward.

The partners of expectant new mothers also face the stigma that many hon. Members have mentioned this afternoon, and I hope we can improve the situation by offering a range of help, such as peer support, behavioural couples therapy sessions and other family and parental interventions. I will focus on that.

This year, unlike in our previous debates on Baby Loss Awareness Week, we have to consider covid. This year, more than most, has been particularly difficult for those facing the loss of a baby. The covid pandemic means measures have been put in place to protect healthcare workers, patients and the general public, and it has been particularly difficult for those who have suffered baby loss during this period.

Specifically on preventing maternal death and morbidity due to covid, recent findings from a national perinatal study show that of 742 women admitted to hospital since vaccination data has been collected, four had received a single vaccine dose and none had received both doses. This means that more than 99% of pregnant women admitted to hospital with symptomatic covid-19 are unvaccinated, and one message I want to get across today is that it is hugely important that mothers and their families are vaccinated to improve their safety.

[Sarah Owen]

We have been pushing the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to make sure that pregnant women are a priority group. Will the Minister give a commitment today that pregnant women will be a priority group in any booster programme?

[Maria Caulfield]

I take the hon. Lady’s point. There was a lot of misinformation earlier in the year that made pregnant women reluctant to come forward, and there is a lot of work we can do to improve that communication.