Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce (a) diagnostic delays and (b) higher rates of hysterectomy experienced by Black women with uterine fibroids.

The Government is committed to improving care for women with uterine fibroids, and to reducing the inequalities in diagnosis and treatment that Black women experience.

Reducing inequalities is hard‑wired throughout the recently published Renewed Women’s Health Strategy. Actions in the strategy are targeted by deprivation, ethnicity, and unmet need, with a focus on marginalised women, community‑based services, neighbourhood health models, and transparent data.

The strategy commits to ending long diagnostic delays for conditions such as fibroids, by improving early assessment and access to care. It recognises heavy periods as an early warning sign of fibroids and that failure to act early leads to avoidable pain and delayed diagnosis. Specifically, the strategy commits to:

• better education for girls and women about what is normal, what is not, and when to seek help for heavy or painful periods. This is backed by an additional £1 million of investment to support targeted work in schools and community settings to support girls’ knowledge about menstrual health. This is an important factor to delays in diagnosis and treatment for fibroids;
• redesigning clinical pathways for menstrual problems, including those caused by fibroids to reduce repeat appointments and fragmented care;
• delivering care, including for fibroids, through community and neighbourhood‑based services, supported by single points of access for gynaecology referrals; and
• develop and implement new patient-reported experience measures and, where appropriate, patient-reported outcome measures, for key women’s health pathways over the next five years, which will given women a direct voice in how these services improve.

Additionally, menstrual problems, which could be a sign of fibroids, are included within the first high‑priority pathways to be supported through the new virtual hospital, NHS Online, from 2027, giving women faster access to advice and treatment if they choose digital routes.

NHS England is also due to publish an equity good practice guide to enable integrated care boards to better understand and reduce inequalities in heavy periods and menopause for women from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Earlier diagnosis and better access to the full range of treatment options are central to giving women genuine choice in regard to hysterectomies. Where fibroids are identified sooner, women can be offered less invasive treatments before surgery becomes necessary. Shared decision making and informed consent mean that hysterectomy should be a fully informed choice, not a default.