Just in: the government has announced their roadmap for closing the gender health gap
After responses from around 100,000 women.
After responses from around 100,000 women.
In breaking news today, the government has announced their roadmap to close the gender pay gap.
For decades, women have faced gender health inequality - all of which will be addressed in a long-awaited government bill detailing its vision to "reset the dial on women’s health."
Titled the "Vision for Women’s Health", it promises to set out "key government commitments on women’s health, while recognising the system-wide changes needed to tackle some of the issues raised."
This will then be addressed in the upcoming Women’s Health Strategy next spring.
Introducing the government's road map to close the Gender Health Gap
To ensure the vision comes to fruition, the government will appoint a Women’s Health Ambassador to "raise the profile of women's health, increase awareness about taboo topics and support the government in implementing the strategy."
This comes after extensive research taking into account the experiences of near 100,000 women across the UK, and marks the start of an era where the government prioritises care on the basis of clinical need, not gender, they say.
It's long overdue, but a welcome move after years of common female health conditions - such as PCOS, PMDD, endometriosis and so on - have gone unnoticed and untreated.
Similarly, thousands of menopausal women across the UK face unfair employment dismissal and debilitating symptoms due to a lack of correct treatment and care.
The findings of the research highlighted as much - according to the Department of Health, the responses paint a "stark and sobering insight" into the real-life experiences of women across the UK, and how, in reality, their health concerns are handled.
It brings to the fore "entrenched problems" within the healthcare system - women feeling like they aren't listened to or taken seriously, their health concerns viewed as "lower priority".
Shockingly, over 8 in 10 women have felt they were not listened to by healthcare professionals at some point.
The Minister for Women’s Health Maria Caulfield has said on the findings: "The responses from the call for evidence were in many ways as expected, particularly with regards to women's priorities, but in some places the revelations were shocking."
“It is not right that over three-quarters of women feel the healthcare service has not listened. This must be addressed."
“Many of the issues raised require long-term system-wide changes, but we must start somewhere. I am proud to publish our vision for women’s health. It is the first step to realising our ambition of a healthcare system which supports women's needs throughout their lives.”
Wondering what the government actually wishes to achieve with the bill? They've outlined the following four points:
- that all women feel comfortable talking about their health and no longer face taboos when they do talk about their health
- that women can access services that meet their needs across the life course
- that all women will have access to high-quality information and education from childhood through to adulthood, in school and beyond
- that all women feel supported in the workplace and can reach their full potential at work
- to embed routine collection of demographic data of participants in research trials to make sure that our research reflects the society we serve.
Do keep an eye on our Marie Claire UK Hormone hub for further details about government action.
