Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reasons endometriosis is not classified as a disability; and if he will make a statement.

The Equality Act 2010 defines disability as a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on a person’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

Decisions about what meets this definition are not generally made on the basis of whether or not a person has a specific condition, but on the impact of that condition. The Equality Act 2010 specifies that only a very small number of health conditions are always considered to be disabilities.

To support women with endometriosis, all obstetricians and gynaecologists have been trained in the diagnosis, investigation and management of the condition, which is specifically listed as a topic in the core curriculum for obstetrics and gynaecology. In September 2017 the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published the guideline ‘Endometriosis: diagnosis and management’ for clinicians. NHS England has developed a service specification for severe endometriosis under the specialised commissioning area of complex gynaecology.