• Heating, which 42% of women have not turned on when they usually would, compared to 33% of men;
• Food, which 27% of women say they have bought less of, because of the increased cost, compared to 20% of men; and
• Energy costs in general, with 33% of women saying they have turned off or avoided using essential appliances to save energy costs, compared to 25% of men.

In 2023, NHS England set a target to eliminate cervical cancer by 2040. It's an admirable but challenging goal, set against declining levels of uptake by women of cervical screening over the past 20 years.

In response, Healthwatch England launched research to investigate why some women are hesitant to go for screening, to make recommendations to policymakers on how to improve uptake and to help meet the elimination goal. 

An inquiry by a cross-party committee of MPs has found that “medical misogyny” is contributing to women being left in pain with undiagnosed reproductive health conditions for years.

The inquiry report out this week includes patient stories shared by Healthwatch Liverpool and also references a submission from Healthwatch Birmingham.

Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, Labour MP Sarah Owen said: “Women are finding their symptoms dismissed, are waiting years for life changing treatment and in too many cases are being put through trauma-inducing procedures.”

The committee has made a number of recommendations, including:

• Better training of medical students and upskilling of GPs

• Targets to improve diagnosis times

• Action to cut surgery waits, including NHS financial support to help women travel further to be seen earlier

• More monitoring and enforcement of trauma-informed practice for procedures such as hysteroscopy, IUD fitting and cervical screening, with patient surveys being used as a key measure

• Better promotion and content on women's health on the NHS App and other channels

• Free tampons and other products for particular groups such as asylum seekers

• Free prescriptions for medication to treat heavy bleeding and other conditions

• Better funding and strengthening of the Women’s Health Strategy.

The government has two months to respond to the findings.

Note also that the Healthwatch national report on cervical screening has been referenced in new clinical guidelines published by the Royal College of Nursing on carrying out screening with physically disabled and autistic women. Our report included national polling and in-depth interviews carried out by 10 local Healthwatch.

Feb 2025

The NHS this week launched its first ever campaign to encourage women to come forward for breast screening as new figures show nearly 750,000 women didn't take up invites last year.

They show that while uptake had improved to its highest level (70%) since the pandemic, this was still lower than 74.6% recorded in 2019. Two and a half million women were invited to book a check-up in the last year, with 1.75 million attending the screening. This equated to 30 per cent overall not attending, with non-attendance higher in nearly four in ten (37.5%) of women invited for the first time.