Written question asked by Jessica Toale (Labour) on Friday, 15 May 2026, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 19 May 2026. It was answered by Karin Smyth (Labour) on Monday, 1 June 2026 on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.

Health Services: Women

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what criteria will govern allocation of the FemTech Challenge Fund; whether successful innovations will be required to demonstrate a clear adoption pathway into NHS services beyond pilot sites before receiving funding; and which organisation will administer the fund and be responsible for evaluating outcomes.

Answer: The Renewed Women’s Health Strategy commits to investing £1.5m into a FemTech healthcare challenge. This investment will accelerate the deployment and spread of innovations that benefit women’s health, with a focus on community service models that address health inequalities. It will enable systems and developers to buy products, and critically to free up clinical and management capacity to transform pathways and ways of working to ensure innovations can be adopted to benefit women and support National Health Service activity. The Department is now developing the detailed delivery arrangements for the funding and will set out further details in due course.

Secondary information