Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he has met the Women’s Health Ambassador in the period since June 2022.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Ministerial meetings are published on GOV.UK at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ministerial-gifts-hospitality-overseas-travel-and-meetings
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding his Department is providing for implementation of the Women's Health Strategy for England.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Government is investing an additional £3.3 billion in 2023/24 and 2024/25 to support the National Health Service in England and increase capacity.
In addition, this spring we announced an additional £25 million investment over the next two years to accelerate the development of women’s health hubs, so that women across England can get better access to care for essential services such as menstrual problems, contraception, and menopause.
Between April 2022 and July 2023, we invested £53 million into National Institute for Health and Care Research programmes to support women’s health, including on male violence against women and girls and on testosterone as a treatment for menopause symptoms.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, omitting staff working on maternity care, how many NHS England staff are working on implementation of the Women's Health Strategy for England as of September 2023; and what portion of those staff are full time.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
NHS England has different teams working on different elements of the Women’s Health Strategy, including staff within the maternity team. Many of the staff work on a range of issues including the Women’s Health Strategy. Senior clinical leadership and advice is being provided by the National Speciality Advisor for Gynaecology until a National Clinical Director for Women’s Health is appointed.
Strategic oversight of this work is provided by the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) for England and the Deputy CNO for Safety and Improvement.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS England staff are working on fertility aspects of the Women's Health Strategy for England as of September 2023; and what portion of those staff are full time.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
NHS England has advised that it has a number of different teams working on different elements of the Women’s Health Strategy, including staff within the maternity team. Senior clinical leadership and advice is being provided by the National Speciality Advisor for Gynaecology until a National Clinical Director for Women’s Health is appointed.
Strategic oversight of this work is provided by the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) for England and the Deputy CNO for Safety and Improvement.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made a recent comparative assessment of the UK rate of (a) breast and cervical cancer screenings, (b) access to Hormone replacement therapy, (c) maternal mortality, (d) women's life expectancy, (e) women's confidence in healthcare provision and (f) time to diagnose (i) endometriosis and (ii) polycystic ovary syndrome compared with similar countries.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
No specific assessments have been made.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
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 implications for his policies on the implementation of the Women's Health Strategy for England of the implementation of the Scottish Women’s Health Plan.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We have no plans to make an assessment.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to publish an implementation framework for the Women's Health Strategy 2022.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We do not plan to publish an implementation framework for the Women’s Health Strategy. We wrote to MPs in January 2023 setting out our priorities for the first year of implementing the Women’s Health Strategy. In this, we committed to update Parliament annually on progress, with the first update due in September 2023. In addition, the strategy committed to publishing a report on progress in delivering our commitments in three years (2025).
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to (a) increase access to women's health hubs and (b) reduce health inequalities for women’s health conditions.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
On 8 March, the Government announced a £25 million investment over the next two years to accelerate the development of women’s health hubs, so that women across England can get better access to care for essential services such as menstrual problems, contraception, menopause and more. Our initial aim is to have at least one women’s health hub within every integrated care system. Further detail on the implementation of the £25 million investment will be provided in due course.
Hubs aim to improve women’s access to and experience of services, and to reduce disparities in outcomes. There is no “one size fits all”, and hub models will look different in different places and should be tailored to the needs of local populations.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number (a) women's health hubs and (b) other one-stop clinics for women.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
On 8 March, the Government announced a £25 million investment over the next two years to accelerate the development of women’s health hubs, so that women across England can get better access to care for essential services such as menstrual problems, contraception, menopause and more. Our initial aim is to have at least one women’s health hub within every integrated care system. Further detail on the implementation of the £25 million investment will be provided in due course.
Hubs aim to improve women’s access to and experience of services, and to reduce disparities in outcomes. There is no “one size fits all”, and hub models will look different in different places and should be tailored to the needs of local populations.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's publication entitled Women's Health Strategy for England, published 30 August 2022, what recent steps his Department has taken to require integrated care boards to provide equal access to NHS fertility treatment for LGBTQ+ people.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Funding decisions for health services in England, including in vitro fertilisation (IVF), are made by integrated care boards (ICBs) and are based on the clinical needs of their local population. We published the first Women’s Health Strategy on 20 July 2022, which contained a number of important changes and future ambitions to improve the variations in access to National Health Service funded fertility services. This includes improving access to IVF for female same-sex couples by removing the additional financial burden they face when accessing treatment. We expect this to take effect during 2023.