The Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) report on reproductive health finds that systemic change is needed not just in the health service, but in the education system and online communications, to help women and girls understand their health and receive the right care.
The inquiry heard that to date there has been too little emphasis on educating girls on menstruation and period problems that can arise. WEC welcomed the introduction of a requirement for schools to teach menstrual and gynaecological health in the updated relationships and sex education and health education (RSHE) curriculum as ‘positive change', but called for ministers to ensure the renewed strategy includes a clear plan for its implementation from September 2026.
WEC heard of a school nurse system that is increasingly ‘under-resourced', with many schools, lacking any access to a nurse. WEC has stated that the new strategy must include an aim to improve provision of school nurses, particularly in deprived areas, who are often the first port-of-call for girls needing help with their menstrual health for the first time.
In the wider healthcare workforce, MPs found that young women and girls are still reporting their concerns around periods being ignored, wrongly told they are too young to get a menstrual health condition such as endometriosis and being prescribed hormonal medication to manage pain without discussion or investigation of underlying causes.
Given women's health hubs support key aims of the Government's 10-year Health Plan for England on prevention and community-based care, it would be ‘self-defeating' of the Government to deny ICBs the requisite funding to maintain and develop them, the report said. It noted that where hubs had been implemented successfully, they had delivered significant improvements to women's healthcare and reduced waiting lists for secondary care.
Steps to address racial discrimination must be included in the renewed strategy and compulsory training on avoiding racial biases in women's health must be core components of training programmes for nurses and doctors, it added. Healthcare practitioners' understanding of the menstrual wellbeing needs of young disabled and deaf women needs to improve, including providing information in suitable formats. Spinal injuries units should be required to provide support and guidance to girls and women on managing menstrual health after paralysis.
Government use of social media to provide information for girls and younger women on menstrual health 'has been poor' and falls 'far short' of what is needed, WEC warned. Girls and women increasingly access health advice from social media, despite some of it being inaccurate and potentially harmful. Tangible progress in this area is not a 'nice to have' addition, it is essential, the Committee concluded.
Ministers must improve the processes for approving and publishing third-party health content and expand the channels via which the NHS communicates, including platforms popular with girls and younger women. Social media companies should be held to account for inappropriate ‘shadow banning' censorship of important women's health content. Ministers must recognise that shadow banning is harmful and unacceptable, and the new Strategy should set out measures to tackle it, the report said. The renewed strategy must also set out a rigorous approach to tackling the risks from ineffective, unsafe and exploitative for-profit FemTech apps.
The Government's renewal of the Women's Health Strategy for England, expected this Spring, must include deliverable actions, an implementation timetable and the necessary workforce and funding commitments. A renewed strategy ,which does not address concerns over pain management, staff training and retention and timely diagnoses, ‘will be inadequate', the report cautioned.
Until menstrual and gynaecological healthcare are embedded as priorities within broader reforms, MPs ‘lack confidence' that improvements in girls' and women's care will be achieved, the Committee concluded. The Government's response to WEC's 2024 "medical misogyny" report was ‘deeply disappointing', it said, prompting a new inquiry in this area.
Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee and Labour MP, Sarah Owen, said: 'It is a national scandal that nearly half a million women are on hospital gynaecology waiting lists when there are effective treatments that could be administered in primary and community care, if only they could access them. Initiatives which have proven to be successful in reducing waiting lists and improving women's access to healthcare, such as women's health hubs, risk being scaled back or discontinued as part of wider reforms. This would be a disaster for girls' and women's menstrual healthcare, when it is in dire need of more support.
'Our inquiry has shown that too many girls and young women are still being let down by a system that fails them at every stage, from the lack of access to a school nurse to dismissal in primary care, and they continue to face unnecessarily painful procedures in diagnosis of relatively common conditions.
'The imminent renewal of the Women's Health Strategy for England presents an opportunity for tangible change for girls and women. A strategy which does not address the concerns set out in this report will be inadequate.'
