{"id":319443,"date":"2026-03-08T17:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T17:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/319443\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T17:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T17:07:08","slug":"nhs-is-letting-women-down-through-medical-misogyny-says-wes-streeting-womens-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/319443\/","title":{"rendered":"NHS is letting women down through \u2018medical misogyny\u2019, says Wes Streeting | Women’s health"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMedical misogyny\u201d in the UK is letting women down, the health secretary, Wes Streeting<\/a>, has admitted, as a survey showed half of female patients felt they had been dismissed or ignored because of their sex.<\/p>\n

A report from Mumsnet<\/a>, which examined data taken from the site over the past decade, warned of \u201cstructural and deeply embedded\u201d sexism in UK healthcare. A survey of women using the site found that more than half believed the NHS was institutionally misogynistic.<\/p>\n

The survey also found that:<\/p>\n

50% of women believe they have been dismissed, ignored or not believed by an NHS<\/a> professional because of their sex.<\/p>\n

64% say they have been explicitly told their pain or symptoms were \u201cnormal\u201d or \u201cin their head\u201d.<\/p>\n

68% think the NHS does not take women\u2019s health concerns seriously.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the publication of a women\u2019s health strategy, which was announced in 2022<\/a> and is expected imminently, Streeting said the report showed that the NHS had let women down too often and for \u201cfar too long\u201d. The health secretary said he was \u201cdriving change\u201d through more funding, menopause support, moving health services into the community and the introduction of Martha\u2019s rule<\/a>, which gives patients a right to an urgent second opinion.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cMedical misogyny has no place within our NHS. It was founded on the principles of equality, yet time and time again, women are ignored and not believed. I want women across the country to know we\u2019re going to tackle this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report, which coincided with International Women\u2019s Day on Sunday, draws on almost 100,000 posts from Mumsnet between 2015 and 2025. The messages describe \u201cdismissal, disbelief or deprioritisation in healthcare settings\u201d, with many users saying they were kept in a holding pattern of \u201cwait and see\u201d instead of being given treatment.<\/p>\n

One woman with adenomyosis and severe endometriosis who lives in near constant pain said she was dismissed by doctors for years with comments like \u201cperiod pain is normal, you may have a low pain threshold\u201d. Another said she had been going to doctors for pelvic pain for 22 years before being diagnosed with the condition. \u201cI haven\u2019t been able to have intercourse for years due to the pain it caused,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A woman who went to her doctor about a \u201cburning band of pain\u201d around her uterus was told she \u201cseemed very emotional\u201d and should consider counselling.<\/p>\n

The report also states that fertility and conception are examples of medical misogyny with \u201creassurance often experienced not as comfort but as dismissal\u201d.<\/p>\n

Delays had major consequences for some women, including one who lost two fallopian tubes, an ovary and a section of bowel waiting for endometriosis surgery. She said: \u201cMy fertility and bowel function would have been saved if I had been treated years earlier, before the endo spread, when I was first put on the waiting list.\u201d<\/p>\n

House of Lords<\/a> research published in 2021 cited multiple studies showing poorer health outcomes for women. A government inquiry in 2020 said an arrogant culture in which serious medical complications were dismissed as \u201cwomen\u2019s problems\u201d had contributed to a string of healthcare scandals<\/a> over several decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor more than a decade, women on Mumsnet have described the same pattern: pain minimised, symptoms dismissed and a constant need to fight simply to be heard,\u201d said Justine Roberts<\/a>, Mumsnet\u2019s founder.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoliticians have repeatedly acknowledged that women\u2019s health has been historically overlooked. But acknowledgment without reform does nothing. And every day of delay in fixing the problem means more women left in pain, more diagnoses missed, and more trust eroded.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mumsnet is also calling for mandatory training on sex-specific bias and women\u2019s health for all health professionals, ending the routine normalisation of women\u2019s pain and the creation of women\u2019s health hubs in each of England\u2019s 42 NHS regions.<\/p>\n

All but three of these integrated health boards have at least one hub but Mumsnet said implementation was uneven. It called for ringfenced funding, clear standards and transparent accountability to create \u201cvisible and measurable\u201d infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Roberts added: \u201cFew examples capture medical misogyny more clearly than the expectation that women should tolerate severe pain during gynaecological procedures. No woman should be expected to endure avoidable pain as the price of care.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMedical misogyny\u201d in the UK is letting women down, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, has admitted, as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,527,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-319443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}