Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of classifying endometriosis as an incurable disability.

The Equality Act 2010 defines disability as a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on a person’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

Decisions about what impairments meet this definition are not generally made on the basis of whether or not a person has a specific condition, but on the impact of that condition. This will apply to women with endometriosis in the same way that it would apply to people with any other condition.

The Equality Act 2010 specifies that only a very small number of health conditions (cancer, HIV infection and multiple sclerosis) can be considered disabilities from the point of diagnosis for the purposes of the Act.