Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of treatment provisions for people diagnosed with endometriosis.

The Department has asked the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to develop a guideline on the diagnosis and management of endometriosis. This will include: symptoms and signs of endometriosis; and use of diagnostic tests including imaging, biomarkers and surgical diagnosis. The guideline is due to be published in September 2017.

To support women with endometriosis, all obstetricians and gynaecologists have been trained in the diagnosis, investigation and management of the condition, which is specifically listed as topic in the core curriculum for obstetrics and gynaecology. The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology has published clinical guidelines on the management of women with endometriosis to assist clinicians. The guideline is available at:

https://www.eshre.eu/Guidelines-and-Legal/Guidelines/Endometriosis-guideline.aspx

NHS England has developed a service specification for severe endometriosis under the specialised commissioning area of complex gynaecology. The Department expects all units providing a service to women with severe endometriosis to provide care which meets the standards NHS England have set out.