Women’s Health Strategy

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth]

I thank the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner), who I know cannot be here today. She has used her expertise to drive forward recognition of UTIs and incontinence—another taboo subject. We have previously had a very good debate in this Chamber on that issue, and that has all informed what we are saying.

The hon. Gentleman tempts me to move into some clinical definitions and clinical pathways. I am not going to do that, but I am very keen to hear about the work that the APPG is doing and its expertise. We will continue to hear from it and about the work that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South are leading to ensure that we make this work in reality. That is absolutely central to the strategy.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s renewed women’s health strategy and their efforts to tackle the ethnic disparities that still exist in the healthcare system. Placing women’s voices at the heart of the strategy is absolutely the right approach, but does my hon. Friend the Minister recognise that there are still persistent gaps that will require robust, targeted interventions if we are to truly address some of the racial barriers that black women still face within the healthcare system, and can she say a little bit about how the strategy will seek to address those gaps?

[Karin Smyth]

I thank my hon. Friend for the work she has done, both on maternity and on sight loss, and for people generally. She is a great advocate for making sure that those voices are heard, both from her own experience and through her advocacy. We are bringing together a voices group—apologies, I cannot remember exactly what we called it in the end—so that there is direct representation in Whitehall at a national level. That is one of the things we wanted to make sure was included in the strategy, and my hon. Friend Baroness Merron has worked assiduously with stakeholder groups and their representatives to ensure that we make that work, as well as on the development of online services and the work to bring things into neighbourhoods. I am very committed to working with her to make sure that that happens.