Towards equity: building a sustainable women’s health strategy

It’s encouraging to see continued momentum around women’s health in UK policy, with the government’s renewed commitment to the Women’s Health Strategy announced. However, as highlighted in RCOG’s report earlier this year, there remains a long way to go in tackling persistent challenges in women’s health. 

To truly close the gender health gap, we believe the 2026 Strategy must drive inclusive innovation in how care is delivered, accessed, and experienced—amplifying women’s voices and aligning with NHS goals to improve outcomes.

The first Women’s Health Strategy gave voice to women’s experiences of being dismissed, receiving inadequate diagnoses, and lacking access to reliable health information. It has since driven meaningful progress, including the creation of women’s health hubs and research that better reflects women’s lived experiences. Yet inequalities persist, black women continue to face disproportionately poor maternal outcomes, elective gynaecology waiting times have increased since the Strategy’s release, and women overall spend more of their lives living with illness and disability than men.

These challenges reflect a health system historically designed to treat discrete conditions, rather than adopting a life-course approach, which recognises the interconnected, complex, and evolving needs of women.

One clear symptom of this is the gynaecology waiting lists, one of the largest elective backlogs since the pandemic, with over 583,000 women and people waiting for care in England as of August 2025. LCP’s collaboration with RCOG revealed that prolonged delays contribute to increasingly complex conditions and more severe symptoms. People in the most deprived areas face a 47% higher waiting list per 100,000 population than those in the least deprived, a stark illustration of the compounding impact of health inequalities.

Over the past year, targeted funding, policy initiatives, and operational changes have helped gynaecology waiting lists begin to fall. However, we still need holistic and sustainable solutions to tackle the root of the gender health gap.

Current details on the new Strategy remain light, with questions remaining around funding, implementation, and long-term oversight. As we look ahead, we would like to see the Strategy being shaped by three core principles: amplifying the voices of all women, aligning with the vision of the NHS 10-Year Plan, and fostering innovation to improve health outcomes.

1. Voices to all women

The Strategy must reflect the diverse experiences and needs of women, particularly those facing intersecting inequalities. To achieve this, it must first and foremost listen to women. Crucially, ensuring the voices of marginalised communities are heard.

The Strategy has outlined its intention to draw on the insights from the NHS 10-Year Plan consultation, the largest public engagement exercise on the future of the NHS. These conversations must not only continue but expand, to ensure the Strategy remains grounded in the diverse lived experience of all women.

Ongoing research supported by the NIHR, particularly into pain and maternal health disparities affecting Black and ethnic minority women, offers an opportunity to ensure the Strategy addresses the needs of those most often underserved.

A promising step was the recent announcement to include menopause-related questions in routine NHS Health Checks. Addressing one of society’s most overlooked health challenges. As Professor Ranee Thakar, President of the RCOG, emphasised, it also offers a critical opportunity to support women from diverse ethnic backgrounds and socially deprived communities in accessing these checks.

To turn lived experience into meaningful action, the Strategy must be backed by tools that identify where change is most needed. Granular data analysis can uncover inequalities and direct resources to the communities and services that need them most. LCP’s work shows how combining data with modelling can highlight areas of greatest short-term health gain, supporting more equitable decision-making.

2. Aligning with the NHS 10-Year Plan

The Strategy must be long-term and transformative, not just a short-term fix. It should align with the NHS 10-Year Plan’s ambition to shift care “from hospital to community,” creating a “neighbourhood NHS” that improves access⁶.

Women’s Health Hubs embody this approach, with Tower Hamlets Women’s Health Hub used as a case study within the NHS 10-year plan.

Despite their benefits, concerns remain about long-term funding and implementation.  While 39 of England’s 42 ICBs have established a hub, the government has not renewed its pledge to ensure one in every ICB. However, research by the Menstrual Health Coalition found that only 14 currently offer all eight core services, highlighting significant geographical inequalities in provision.  Meanwhile, the ongoing restructuring of ICBs has created further uncertainty around centralised funding and their future.

To truly align with the NHS 10-Year Plan, the Strategy should commit to sustaining and embedding Women’s Health Hubs as a core part of community-based care.

3. Innovation in women’s health 

Despite the ambitions of the 2022 Strategy, innovation in women’s health remains limited, both in R&D and access to NHS pathways. Despite accounting for a significant share of disease burden, female-only conditions make up just 5% of pharmaceutical pipelines.

Even when innovation occurs, access is slow due to systemic barriers. Developers face unclear approval processes and limited funding within the NHS. Bureaucracy continues to block new treatments and technologies, particularly in femtech. Dame Lesley Regan’s call for a “bright yellow front door” highlights the need for a more transparent and supportive system, one that enables innovators to navigate NHS and government structures to bring solutions to patients faster.

The cost of inaction is high. Gynaecology waiting lists and the gender health gap are estimated to cost the UK economy £36 billion annually in lost productivity. Addressing these disparities is not just a matter of equity, supporting women’s health enhances productivity and helps retain valuable talent in the workforce.

By embedding strategies from the outset, investing in female-focused innovation, and improving access pathways, the biopharmaceutical industry and NHS can improve outcomes and unlock growth while building a more inclusive healthcare system.

Closing thoughts: Improving health equity for women

In our work, we continue to see the urgent need to improve equity in women’s healthcare. Our previous analysis of breast cancer care shows that women from deprived and ethnic minority communities face later diagnoses, longer waits for treatment, and poorer outcomes.

Modelling suggests that addressing these inequalities, particularly at the stage of diagnosis, could lead to significant survival gains, with Black women potentially gaining up to six months of life. These findings underscore the importance of a Strategy that is ambitious, targeted, inclusive, and women-centred.

To close the gender health gap, the 2026 Strategy must champion innovation not just in technology and treatment, but in how care is delivered, accessed, and experienced. By amplifying women’s voices, aligning with NHS goals, and fostering inclusive innovation, the Strategy can drive meaningful change and improve outcomes for all women.