Last month, Chamber and 50:50 Parliament hosted a ‘Welcome to Parliament’ event for newly elected MPs, focusing on women’s health. Several MPs, health professionals, and campaigners highlighted the current issues surrounding women’s health and the urgent need to address them. This event was kindly sponsored by Bayer, a leader in both pharmaceuticals and agricultural solutions, which has a long-standing commitment to improving women’s health through innovation and advocacy.
The speakers included:
- Lyanne Nicholl, CEO of 50:50 Parliament (Chair)
- Mariella Frostrup, Menopause Champion and British Journalist and TV presenter
- Carolyn Harris MP, Chair All Party Parliamentary Group Menopause
- Cherry Healey, Women’s Health Advocate and British TV presenter
- Emily Darlington MP, Deputy Leader Milton Keynes City Council, and former Special Advisor at HM Treasury Health
- Preet Kaur Gill MP, Former Shadow Minister Mental Health, and Primary Care
- Vikki Slade MP, Member of Parliament for Mid Dorset, and North Poole
- Dr Janet Barter, President of The Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Health (FRSH)
- Janet Lindsay, CEO of Wellbeing of Women
- Dr Christine Ekechi, Co-Chair of the Race Equality Taskforce at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and Trustee of Eve Appeal
- Shobhna Ladva, Bayer Women’s Health
Research Disparities
The neglect of women’s health in research was a recurring theme. Wellbeing of Women CEO Janet Lindsay stated that the research gap underpins many issues. Cherry Healey highlighted the disparity, noting that there are three over-the-counter treatments for erectile dysfunction but none for endometriosis. All speakers agreed that increased funding for research into women’s health is essential, with MPs notably supporting this view.
Improving Health Awareness
The lack of awareness of women’s health issues, particularly menopause, is one of the greatest challenges in the area. Research by UCL shows that in the UK, 9 in 10 women have never received any education on menopause, with the WHO labelling a lack of awareness as the primary challenge in dealing with related problems.
MP Carolyn Harris shared her story of post-menopausal depression, explaining that it was not discussed and was assumed to be natural rather than treatable. Both she and MP Emily Darlington experienced misdiagnoses related to menopause.
NHS policy efforts to improve awareness were another central topic discussed at the event. Shobhna Ladva discussed Bayer’s initiative to spread sexual health education for girls before they become sexually active, in order to educate and mitigate any risks they may face in later life.
Treatment
Speakers addressed gaps in training related to female biology. Frostrup noted that menopause is often misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s due to similar symptoms. Both Dr Janet Barter and Dr Christine Ekechi endorsed efforts to make medical courses provide more assessments on female health.
Whilst discussion primarily focused on menopause, other conditions such as cervical cancer and autism were also discussed, with Vikki Slade noting that autism is underdiagnosed in women.
More broadly, the scale of the backlog on women’s health issues was raised by Emily Darlington MP. As discussed in a previous article,, the NHS backlog is a significant problem for the new government, one that will require significant effort to address.
Disparities Among Women
Disparities among women in health were also a key topic. Janet Lindsay highlighted deeply troubling statistics, such as the fact that Black women are four times more likely to die in childbirth than the national average.
Dr Ekechi highlighted other important disparities, stating that although “everyone talks about Black women and Asian women, disparities present themselves in so many ways.” She particularly focused on economic discrepancies, drawing attention to the differences between women who can access private healthcare and those who cannot, resulting in a system where “disparities are alive and kicking.”
Additionally, she argued that significant inequalities exist within the NHS itself, calling for medical care to be “evened out.”
Gender Balance
Following this month’s election, the new parliament has the highest share of women in history, with 260, or 40%, of MPs being women, an increase of 6% from the previous election. With this new parliament, the UK is among the 29 countries with 40% or more women in parliament. However, as 50:50 CEO Lyanne Nicholl pointed out, there is still more work to be done. The increase in female MPs obscures the fact that fewer female candidates stood than in 2019.
Although speakers acknowledged that there is still work to be done to achieve 50:50 representation, they saw this issue as an incredibly positive step. After describing the scale of the backlog of women’s health issues, MP Emily Darlington stated, “This is why we need women in parliament. No one is going to do it for us.”
Speakers argued that representing voices on the issue would require more than just getting women into government. Frostrup appealed to history, stating, “In the UK, we’ve had three female prime ministers, and not one of them has addressed issues around women’s health.” She stated that it is “up to those lower down the food chain to move the dial” when those in leadership fail.
Dr Ekechi agreed that putting women in leadership is not by itself sufficient, stating that “being a woman is not enough, you have to be a woman who likes women,” and that “being a man doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re against women.”
Despite this, all speakers agreed that representation is still important. Dr Ekechi referred to her medical experience in which women’s health issues are generally the first to be deprioritised in the event of cuts. She stated that this was “partly” because there were not enough women on the executive board to “push back.”
Final Thought
Overall, there was general agreement among the speakers that a more representative parliament and health system are vital to ensuring that women’s health receives proper attention in the future. Better gender representation alone is not enough without female, and male, MPs actively pushing for equality.
Bayer has provided sponsorship funding, which supported logistics and materials for this event. Chamber maintained complete editorial control for the event and outputs.
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