Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to implement the policies set out in the Women’s Health Strategy for England, published on 30 August 2022.

In January the Department set out its eight priorities for the first year of implementing the Women’s Health Strategy, July 2022 to July 2023, in a letter to MPs. Good progress is being made to deliver these priorities. For example, recently, the Department has reduced the cost of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) prescriptions through a bespoke HRT prescription pre-payment certificate. From 1 April 2023, women can pay a one-off charge equivalent to two single prescription charges (£19.30) for all their HRT prescriptions for a year.

We are also investing £25 million in women’s health hubs, so that women can get better access to care for essential services such as menstrual problems, contraception and the menopause. We will update Parliament annually on progress, with the first update due in September 2023.