Serious not senseless: The challenges of female healthcare

Women’s healthcare continues to suffer from neglect and systematic disparities under the NHS.

If I was to say that 51% of the population will spend a greater proportion of their life in ill health and struggling with disability than the other 49%, you might be shocked or wonder why. If I then informed you that it is women living with this reality, does your reaction change? Despite its free access unmistakably promoting inclusivity, the NHS is undeniably flawed. Although this has become a well-known fact, what it shouldn’t be is accepted or taken lightly. 

Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has introduced plans to take the NHS “back to basics” and failed to renew the implementation of women’s health hubs across the UK, despite the fact this was already underway. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have highlighted how these hubs increased the services available for women to access, reduced the number of poor outcomes, and decreased the number of women attending emergency services due to worsening symptoms. Streeting’s disregard for the apparent benefits of these hubs has revived the belief that women’s healthcare is not a government priority as the inequalities women face run deeper than just a policy reversal on effective female health hubs.  

One of the first challenges to your patience and resilience occurs in both getting an appointment with your General Practitioner (GP) and convincing them your pain and concerns are real, not a senseless overreaction. To give credit to some dismissive GPs, the invalidation of women’s pain has become quite normalised in society, both in and outside of the doctor’s office, as almost half of all women have been told by someone in their life that their life-limiting menstrual symptoms are “normal.” 

We’ve all heard about the excessively long waitlists for appointments in the NHS, but amongst this is 570,000 women waiting for gynecological care, 77% of whom are facing negative impacts on their work and social activities. The consequences of overly long waitlists go beyond a deterioration in physical health, it is also mentally damaging as 80% of these women waiting for care experience deterioration in their mental health. Even before treatment can be provided, an official diagnosis could validate their pain and relieve them of part of the mental burden it creates and remove all grounds for denial from others.  

The long waits in the process of accessing care impairs quality of life both in the long and short term, leaving pain untreated and the patient potentially deteriorating. In cases of endometriosis, where symptoms include extreme pain, tiredness, anxiety, shortness of breath and coughing up blood, the average diagnosis time in the UK is eight years and ten months, despite it affecting one in ten women. 

Though this is not an exhaustive list of all symptoms, it portrays an image of the immense suffering that these women endure while attempting to maintain a normal lifestyle, as it is often only after a diagnosis their pain is taken seriously. This pain is not limited to endometriosis, as conditions such as adenomyosis, fibroids, pelvic inflammatory diseases (PID) present similar symptoms.  

Contraception is a responsibility shared between men and women, yet the difficulties surrounding it are disproportionately enforced onto women.

Nearly half of women in the UK face barriers when accessing contraception, despite it being an important part of sexual and reproductive rights. Restrictions based on medical history apply to the birth control shot, the implant, the IUD, the pill and patches, which aim to protect women from the risks associated with each method. However, according to a Channel 4 survey, 77% of women who have taken the contraceptive pill, experienced side effects. 

Contraception is a responsibility shared between men and women, yet in the absence of available male contraception, the difficulties surrounding it are disproportionately enforced onto women, rather than whichever partner it would create the least harm to. 

It is a frequent topic of debate but take a moment to humour me and consider how protecting women’s sexual and reproductive rights is larger than contraceptive care. It involves abortion procedures, and perhaps less widely discussed, miscarriage care. Using Texas as an example following the overturning of Roe V Wade, we can see how abortion bans have increased the rate of sepsis in pregnant women by over 50% for hospitalised women experiencing miscarriages in their second trimester. 

Pro-life and pro-choice views cause no end of disagreement, however if it was ever truly about protecting life then why is the mother’s health so frequently left unconsidered? Ignorance surrounding the overlap between abortion and miscarriage procedures is, quite simply, deadly.  

Trends and opinions surrounding the idealised version of a woman come and go, yet they too frequently influence female healthcare. We live in an era that seems to be failing to prioritise being comfortable in your own body and confusing this with vanity.

A University of Glasgow student told Hillhead Review that she had hoped to have a breast reduction to ease back pain and increase mobility, but was denied this procedure due to a combination of excessive wait lists and potential impacts on breastfeeding in the future. Despite her expressing that she does not wish to have children, her opinions appear to have been disregarded in the promotion of a female stereotype that she simply must wish to bear children in the future. 

Pain itself has no distinction between genders; everyone will feel it, and some will inevitably experience it to a different degree. Equal access to healthcare should therefore be available without disparities. A record number of 4.61 million women in the UK are up to date with their breast screenings, and many other services, such as support for menopause and domestic violence, prove the progress and effectiveness that the NHS is capable of. 

Women’s rights are not yet equal to men’s, and in a supposedly modern and progressive society, it is only fair that women can access a system designed to ease at least one aspect of their anguish.

Published 6 March 2025