Health 
Over the past two decades, women’s health has gradually moved from the margins towards becoming a recognised system-wide priority. Within this time, policy milestones included the appointment of Dame Lesley Regan as England’s first Women’s Health Ambassador and the publication of the first-ever Women’s Health Strategy for England in 2022 which reflected the growing acknowledgement that women’s experiences of healthcare had too often been shaped by fragmented services, delayed diagnosis, poor data and the normalisation of pain and poor outcomes.
The 2022 strategy was historic, as it formally recognised women’s health through a life course lens and acknowledged that the health system had consistently failed to listen to women. It set out ambitions around women’s health hubs, reducing taboos, improving data and research, strengthening access to care and tackling inequalities. Since then, there has been progress in areas including menopause awareness, women’s health hubs and greater national focus on gynaecology waiting lists and maternal health inequalities. However, many stakeholders argued that delivery remained inconsistent, fragmented and underfunded.
These concerns ultimately shaped the renewed strategy published by the new government, following change of government in 2024. Compared to the 2022 strategy, the renewed strategy places greater emphasis on neighbourhood health delivery, digital innovation, prevention and system accountability. However, while the language around implementation is stronger, there is still limited detail on funding mechanisms, commissioning reform and how delivery responsibilities will operate within a rapidly changing NHS structure.
What the strategy gets right
The new strategy gets a number of things right. Its emphasis on women’s voices and lived experience signals a shift towards more patient-centred care, particularly in areas where women have historically felt unheard, including pain and diagnosis. The life course approach is also a clear strength, recognising that women’s health does not begin and end with reproduction but spans menstrual health, menopause, ageing and long-term conditions.
Alongside this, the strategy places welcome emphasis on prevention and practical delivery. Commitments to improving access to contraception, strengthening menstrual health education, supporting menopause care and addressing gynaecology waiting lists reflect a more holistic response to real and pressing challenges. Plans to shift more care into community settings and streamline care pathways could also help improve access and reduce pressure on secondary care if implemented effectively.
The strategy’s increased focus on innovation and FemTech is also notable. A £1.5 million FemTech challenge fund aimed at accelerating the deployment of community digital tools for areas such as heavy menstrual bleeding, menopause and urogynaecology signals growing recognition of the role innovation can play in improving diagnosis, monitoring and self-management. Digital tools, remote monitoring and AI-enabled technologies could improve access to care, particularly for conditions such as endometriosis, PCOS and menopause.
Where innovation meets reality
However, the policy challenge is not simply whether innovation exists but whether the NHS is structurally equipped to adopt and scale it effectively. Many women’s health technologies continue to face unclear adoption pathways, fragmented procurement processes and inconsistent commissioning arrangements across systems. There are also ongoing questions around how emerging technologies will be evaluated within existing NICE frameworks and whether evidence standards are appropriately designed for digital women’s health tools and patient-generated data.
Data governance and privacy are also becoming increasingly important policy questions within women’s health. As more intimate and sensitive health information is collected through apps, wearables and digital platforms, concerns around data-sharing, commercial use and patient trust are likely to grow. At the same time, digital exclusion risks creating a two-tier system where women with lower digital access, language barriers or lower health literacy benefit less from innovation-led care pathways.
There are also important concerns around algorithmic bias and whether digital health innovation risks reinforcing existing inequalities if datasets and technologies are not designed inclusively. At the same time, censorship and restrictions surrounding women’s health information online continue to affect access to trusted information on areas including menstruation, fertility and reproductive health, undermining prevention and early intervention efforts.
Where the gaps remain
The central challenge is no longer whether the Government recognises women’s health as a priority, but whether the system is capable of delivering meaningful change in practice.
There is currently limited clarity on how key commitments will be implemented in practice. Women’s Health Hubs, for example, are positioned as a central delivery mechanism yet their role within wider neighbourhood health models remains unclear. Without clear operational boundaries and dedicated leadership, there is a risk that women’s health could become diluted within broader NHS reforms, losing the specialist focus and expertise that the strategy itself argues is necessary.
This also raises wider questions about commissioning and accountability. While the strategy acknowledges fragmentation as a major barrier to progress, it stops short of outlining how commissioning structures will be simplified or aligned nationally. Without stronger coordination, access to services is likely to continue varying significantly across regions depending on local priorities, workforce availability and system capacity.
Funding and workforce capacity are also critical issues. Health professionals are already operating under significant pressure with high levels of burnout across the system. This is particularly important in women’s health because the NHS and wider care workforce are themselves predominantly female, with many staff also experiencing conditions such as menopause, heavy menstrual bleeding, pelvic pain and other long-term health conditions while remaining in work. Improving women’s health therefore has implications not only for patient outcomes but for workforce retention, productivity and the sustainability of the health system itself. Without sustained investment and workforce support, the strategy risks placing additional strain on an already stretched system.
Structural changes across the NHS, including the proposed abolition of NHS England and transfer of functions into the Department of Health and Social Care, add further uncertainty around delivery and accountability. At the same time, proposals within the Health Bill to abolish Healthwatch England and local Healthwatch structures raise important questions around patient voice and public accountability. This sits somewhat in tension with the strategy’s own commitment to strengthen patient-centred care and link elements of provider funding and performance more closely to women’s experiences of care and feedback. The challenge will therefore be ensuring that reforms genuinely strengthen, rather than weaken, mechanisms for listening to women and responding to poor experiences.
The renewed strategy also lands in the context of wider political uncertainty and ministerial change. Shifts in political leadership and cabinet reshuffling can significantly affect policy continuity, prioritisation and delivery momentum, particularly for long-term reform agendas that rely on sustained cross-government collaboration. Women’s health policy has historically suffered from periods of momentum followed by deprioritisation, making long-term accountability mechanisms particularly important.
The renewed strategy also lands in the context of growing concern around medical misogyny, racism in healthcare and the historic exclusion of women from research and clinical design. The Baroness Amos review and wider maternity investigations have highlighted serious concerns around racism, patient safety, culture and accountability, including poorer outcomes for Black women and women with complex conditions such as sickle cell disease during pregnancy. These inequalities demonstrate why women’s health policy cannot simply focus on access in general terms, but must explicitly address structural inequities and differential outcomes.
What happens next
The next phase of this work must focus on delivery, implementation and accountability. The shift towards community-based care presents a real opportunity to improve access to early intervention and preventative services, but it must be implemented in a way that maintains a clear and dedicated focus on women’s health.
Addressing inequalities must also remain central. This includes not only closing gaps between men and women, but tackling disparities between different groups of women, particularly those facing multiple and intersecting disadvantages.
Finally, delivery will depend on collaboration. Improving women’s health outcomes cannot sit with the health system alone. It requires coordinated action across government, including education, as well as engagement with charities, grassroots organisations, industry, innovators and the research community.
Building on the APHG’s recent parliamentary discussion on the renewal of the Women’s Health Strategy, which explored the gap between policy ambition and delivery. Policy Connect will continue examining these issues through a follow-on programme of work which we are now looking to partner with organisations on. If you are interested in contributing ideas, evidence or potential areas for collaboration, please get in touch with Faiza Abdi at faiza.abdi@policyconnect.org.uk.
