Health: Women and Pain

Baroness Hussein-Ece Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

As I have previously committed to and confirmed, as my noble friend will be aware of, the 10-year health plan reaffirms the commitment to rolling out fracture liaison services by 2030 as part of more devolved health services. We continue to work with integrated care boards to make that happen, while investing, for example, £2.6 million in 20 new state-of-the-art DEXA scanners, building on the first wave of investment of £1.9 million in 13 of the scanners last year.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, recent reports have shown a clear lack of awareness and understanding of women’s reproductive health conditions among primary health care practitioners. Other reports have cited that what is needed is to remove the stigma and for there to be more training and awareness, so that women across the country, wherever they live and whoever their GP might be, can expect the same level of support and pain relief should they need it.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I certainly agree. Looking back at the 2022 women’s health strategy, 84% of women experienced not being listened to by a healthcare professional. As I have already stated, that is totally unacceptable. A third of those women said that this had harmed their mental well-being. This is a very serious matter and that is why we are strengthening professional education across a range of conditions, testing out the patient power payments and introducing patient reported-experience measures. All those should drive improvements of care over the next five years, some more immediately than others.