Health Services: Women
(asked on 14th March 2024) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of women’s health hubs in reducing waiting times for women’s health (a) diagnoses and (b) treatment.
Answered by
Maria Caulfield
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We are investing £25 million into women’s health hubs to support better access to services, improve health outcomes, and reduce unnecessary secondary care referrals. The interim report from the University of Birmingham, RAND, and the Cambridge Evaluation (BRACE) Centre, named Early evaluation of women’s health hubs and published in October 2022, showed that hubs can ease pressures on secondary care services and gynaecology waiting lists by improving access to care in the community. The report is available at the following link:
Our cost-benefit analysis published in July 2023 used existing evidence to quantify the benefits generated by hubs, which includes improved access to services, improved health outcomes for women, and fewer secondary care referrals. This estimates there will be £5 of benefits for every £1 spent on a hub the size of a primary care network. Further assessments will be made based on reporting from integrated care boards, as their hubs are set up.