Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, in the context of the forthcoming Women's Health Strategy, what steps his Department plans to take to help ensure adherence to NICE guidelines for (a) diagnosing and (b) treating endometriosis.

As set out in the Women’s Health Strategy, we will work with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on its five-year strategy to ensure that guidelines can be implemented and accessible to healthcare professionals and commissioners of local services. NICE’s guidelines describe best practice which healthcare professionals are expected to take fully into account in the care and treatment of patients. However, these guidelines are not mandatory and do not override a clinician’s responsibility to make appropriate decisions for individual patients.

NICE reviewed its endometriosis guideline in 2021, which was amended to highlight that those with endometriosis outside the pelvic cavity should be referred to a specialist endometriosis centre. NICE has begun a review of its guidelines on endometriosis to consider whether it should be updated.