Women’s Health Strategy for England

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I thank the hon. Lady in particular for that tribute to the work Sir David contributed to this, and agree with her on the issue of same-sex couples having access to IVF. She is right about better research and how we highlight that; that is a key part of the strategy. It is also interesting from the comments of the health ambassador that services can be reconfigured in a way that gives better outcomes for the patient without leading to higher cost. By having centres of excellence where the woman’s voice is heard, treatment comes more quickly and that delivers better patient outcomes.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

May I welcome my right hon. Friend to his place and say how good it is that he has had direct experience with Kath Sansom and the work of Sling the Mesh? I also pay tribute to the hon. Members for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) and for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy); the three of us have worked closely cross-party to bring these issues to the Floor in Westminster Hall debates and in this Chamber, which I think has played a big part in today’s strategy. I thank them across the House for that work.

Within the strategy there is talk of centres of excellence and mesh centres, but those must be carefully monitored, because we are getting a lot of feedback now that mesh centres are perhaps not working in the way we think they are. That must be carefully monitored, and data collections may not be working in the way my right hon. Friend would hope, so that will be important.

I welcome the strategy on listening to women. Anecdotally, too often the words “sexist” and “misogynist” have been used about the NHS’s attitude to women, and we need to move to a stage where those words are no longer used and it is not saying, “Go and take some painkillers,” patting them on the head and saying, “It’s all very normal.”

On that final point, will my right hon. Friend talk to our right hon. Friend the Education Secretary about teaching in school about diseases such as endometriosis? If people do not know a disease exists, how can they know they have it? That is an important point. Overall, I welcome this strategy as a massive step forward, but we must all recognise that we cannot give up. There is much more to do to ensure that what is in the strategy actually works.

[Steve Barclay]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who I know has campaigned for many years on this; mesh is a particular issue that he and I have spoken about in the past. On the quality of data I am very happy to work with him on any specific examples, and indeed with colleagues across the House, because I know there are others who have worked closely on the mesh campaign, to see how we get the right consistency and the right analysis of data, because that is a shared interest of all of us in the House today.

In terms of the Department for Education, I am very happy to take the matter forward with my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary to look at what schools can do to raise awareness. That ties in with the wider point about ensuring that patients have the right information and that, where issues and concerns arise, they are not fobbed off but taken seriously.