Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to (a) improve access to pain management for people with endometriosis and (b) ensure endometriosis is recognised by NICE as a chronic pain condition.

The Women’s Health Strategy for England, published in July 2022, highlighted menstrual health and gynaecological conditions, including endometriosis, as a priority area and states the ambition to improve the experience of care for women and girls with severe endometriosis.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) guideline on endometriosis make recommendations on pharmacological pain management, including analgesics, neuromodulators and neuropathic pain treatments and hormonal treatments. The NICE guideline ‘Endometriosis: diagnosis and management’ is available at the following link: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng73

NHS England is reviewing the service specification for severe endometriosis and a working group will report the outcome in 2023. This will ensure that specialist endometriosis services have access to the recent evidence and advice and improve standards of care for women with severe endometriosis.