Women’s healthcare in the UK is stuck in the 1990s, the Government’s women’s health tsar has warned.
Dame Lesley Regan, England’s ambassador for women’s health, said women and girls had been “let down” by successive governments’ failure to take their health seriously.
She said Britain had become “complacent” about women’s health, calling it a “really sad state of affairs”, adding that red tape was blocking progress and pledged to speed up access to new treatments, tests and technology.
Speaking at the Women’s Health Week Europe conference in London, she said she was frequently asked if current statistics about women’s health and access to care in the UK were from “1995, not 2025”.
Dame Lesley, who is also a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Imperial College London, said: “This is a really sad state of affairs. We’ve got so complacent about the importance of women’s health that we’ve really let girls and women down.”
Dame Lesley Regan has said successive governments have ‘let down women and girls’
She told investors and femtech brands attending the conference she planned to create a “bright yellow front door” to help new women’s health advancements get through NHS and government red tape.
She cited figures showing women suffered disproportionately from conditions like osteoporosis, frailty in old age and dementia.
More than 600,000 women are on the NHS hospital waiting list for gynaecology treatment and the gender health gap costs the UK economy £36bn a year, mainly in lost productivity from women who are unable to work because they are unable to access treatment.
The Dame announced plans for an “open-door” policy to make it easier for new women’s health treatments, tests and technology to become available on the NHS.
Dame Lesley said she was “really frustrated” that developers of new treatments, tests and technology aimed at improving women’s healthcare often got “pushback” when they approached the Government or were blocked by complex bureaucracy from making their products available to women via the NHS.
She also said the advice hub manned by civil servants would help companies understand which “hoops they needed to jump through” to get into NHS systems. She insisted it would not be a way for companies to bypass regulation but would stop bureaucracy “blocking good ideas”.
Dame Lesley added: “At the moment, the system says ‘no’ or it says ‘we don’t do it that way’ – it’s not engaging. We can’t afford to loss these generous offers of help and turn people with good ideas away.”
Commenting on the “open-door” policy, Anna O’Sullivan, representing the organisation FemTech UK, said: “It’s encouraging to see [Dame Lesley] recognise the need for a clearer and more connected pathway for women’s health innovation.
“We know that founders spend huge amounts of time and energy just trying to navigate the system – that’s time that could be spent building solutions to improve women’s lives.
“But this progress must come with prioritisation of women’s health within the NHS innovation agenda. Without dedicated support and funding, even the best front-door risks leading nowhere. With sustained investment and focus, the UK can turn its world-class ideas in women’s health into impact for millions of women.”
Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, was criticised earlier this year after he dropped plans to roll out women’s health hubs from his 10-Year Plan for the NHS.
It has since emerged these may be incorporated into so-called Neighbourhood Health hubs, which could allow patients to access several different health services in one place.
