Decisions on employment in obstetrics and gynaecology are a matter for individual National Health Service trusts which manage their recruitment at a local level, ensuring they have the right number of staff in place, with the right skill mix, to deliver safe and effective care.

As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we are working closely with NHS England, employers, and educators to improve transition into the workforce.

The Government is committed to publishing a 10 Year Workforce Plan to set out action to create a workforce ready to deliver the transformed service set out in the 10-Year Health Plan.

The Government is committed to prioritising women’s health, and cutting waiting times across all specialities, including gynaecology.

Through the Elective Reform Plan, we are increasing the relative funding available specifically for gynaecology activity, introducing innovative models of care that deliver services closer to home, including women’s integrated neighbourhoods in the NHS South West London Integrated Care Board (ICB), and piloting gynaecology pathways in community diagnostic centres for conditions such as post-menopausal bleeding.

As of April 2026, there are fewer than 16,800 pathways on the gynaecology waiting list in the NHS South West London ICB. 12 months ago, there were fewer than 17,000. Care is being delivered quicker with the percentage of patient pathways involving waits of less than 18 weeks for treatment improving to 64.5% from 57.8% in the same period.

In April, we published the Renewed Women’s Health Strategy for England. The strategy represents a decisive shift towards addressing longstanding failings in women’s health outcomes, experiences, and access to care.

This information is not held centrally. We are committed to cutting waiting lists and improving waiting times across the board, ensuring patients get the care they need sooner.

The Renewed Women’s Health Strategy for England, published in April 2026, represents a decisive shift towards addressing longstanding failings in women’s health outcomes, experiences, and access to care.

As part of the renewed strategy, we are supporting integrated care boards to introduce a single point of access for all non-urgent referrals to gynaecology and women's health services to speed up access to better treatment. By introducing a single point of access, when general practitioners (GPs) refer a woman to a specialist, they will be directed through triage immediately to the most appropriate professional, whether this be in the community, secondary care, or for a diagnostic procedure.

We are redesigning clinical pathways for the most common clinical pathways, including heavy periods, menopause, and uro-gynaecology. This will standardise care pathways and remove unnecessary procedural delays. These redesigned pathways will create roadmaps for health systems to use and adapt for local needs that will enable women to move more quickly through the system and reach the level of care they need with fewer appointments.

A core part of the improved women’s health offer set out in the Renewed Women’s Health Strategy will be neighbourhood women's health services. Neighbourhood women’s healthcare is delivered by both a range of providers and digitally, giving women access not just to GPs and community specialists in women’s health, but to other services including pelvic physiotherapists, pharmacies, and psychological support services.

Next year we will establish an online hospital, NHS Online, which will give people on certain pathways the choice of getting the specialist care they need from their home. It will connect patients with clinicians across the country through secure, online appointments accessed through the NHS App.

NHS Online will help to reduce patient waiting times, delivering the equivalent of up to 8.5 million appointments and assessments in its first three years, four times more than an average trust, while enhancing patient choice and control over their care. Menstrual problems, including those caused by endometriosis and menopause, are prioritised as two of the first pathways to be delivered through community-based services and the new virtual hospital, NHS Online.

Between April 2025 and January 2026, there were over 233,000 Advice and Guidance requests for gynaecology. Of these, over 99,000 resulted in patients being supported to get care in the right place without unnecessarily being added to elective gynaecology waiting lists, with patients receiving appropriate care in primary and community settings instead.

The Government recognises that women suffering with gynaecological conditions, including endometriosis and polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS), have been failed for far too long, and we acknowledge the impact it has on women’s lives, relationships, and participation in education and the workforce.

The Renewed Women’s Health Strategy commits to speeding up diagnosis and access to treatment for conditions including endometriosis and PMOS.

Clinical pathways for heavy periods and pelvic pain, which can be a sign of endometriosis, will be redesigned to reduce repeat appointments, unnecessary referrals, and long waits.

The strategy also announces a new programme to improve education for girls about their menstrual health, investing an additional £1 million to support targeted work in schools and community settings to support girls’ knowledge about menstrual health and when to seek healthcare. This is an important factor in delays in diagnosis and treatment for endometriosis and PMOS.

We are also introducing an “online hospital”, NHS Online. From 2027, people on certain pathways, including menstrual problems that may be a sign of PMOS or endometriosis, will have the choice of getting the specialist care they need from their home. NHS Online will help to reduce patient waiting times, delivering the equivalent of up to 8.5 million appointments and assessments in its first three years.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is developing a guideline on PMOS, which is expected to be published in December this year, with the draft guideline published for consultation in July.

We know that women deserve better, which is why we are delivering our commitment that women’s health will never be neglected again. We are committed to improving waiting times for diagnosis and treatment so women can get the care they need sooner, including specialist gynaecological care.

The Renewed Women’s Health Strategy, published in April 2026, committed to several actions to improve access to care for gynaecological conditions including menopause and endometriosis. These include commitments to redesign clinical pathways for the most common clinical pathways such as heavy periods, menopause, and uro-gynaecology. These redesigned pathways will create roadmaps for health systems to use and adapt for local needs that will enable women to move more quickly through the system and reach the level of care they need with fewer appointments, and will support integrated care boards to introduce a single point of access for all non-urgent referrals to gynaecology and women’s health services to speed up access to better treatment.

Menstrual problems, including those caused by endometriosis and menopause, are prioritised as the first pathways to be delivered through community-based services and the new virtual hospital, NHS Online. NHS Online will give people on certain pathways the choice of getting the specialist care they need from their home. It will connect patients with clinicians across the country through secure, online appointments accessed through the NHS App.

For women with severe endometriosis, NHS England commissions specialised services through 61 accredited hospitals contracted to deliver care in line with the current service specification. These are accredited by the British Society for Gynaecological Endoscopy. A revised specification is progressing through NHS governance and commissioning processes, ahead of consideration by the Clinical Priorities Advisory Group in 2026/27. The revised specification will introduce a networked model of care to ensure all patients with endometriosis have access to clinicians with appropriate expertise, including through primary care, community services, and secondary care settings.

This will improve the standards of care for women with severe endometriosis by ensuring specialist endometriosis services have access to the most up-to-date evidence and advice.

This Government is committed to prioritising women’s health, and cutting waiting times across all specialities, including gynaecology.

Through the Elective Reform Plan, we are increasing the relative funding available specifically for gynaecology activity, introducing innovative models of care that deliver services closer to home, and piloting gynaecology pathways in community diagnostic centres for conditions such as post-menopausal bleeding.

As of April 2026, there are 16,074 pathways on the gynaecology waiting list in the NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board. Despite a small increase of 206 pathways in the last 12 months, care is being delivered quicker with the percentage of patients waiting within 18 weeks improving to 59% from 52.7% in the same period.

And in April, we published the Renewed Women’s Health Strategy for England. The strategy represents a decisive shift towards addressing longstanding failings in women’s health outcomes, experiences, and access to care.

The Renewed Women’s Health Strategy, published on the 15 April 2026, sets out 117 actions across four core commitments: acting on women’s voices and choices; transforming National Health Service performance in services that matter most to women; supporting all women to lead healthier lives; and creating an approach to research and development that works for and empowers women. The Renewed Women’s Health Strategy contains a summary of the actions associated with each commitment, and which organisation or organisations will be responsible for delivery of each one.

Baroness Gillian Merron, the Minister for Women’s Health and Mental Health, and the Department will have overall responsibility for implementing the Renewed Women’s Health Strategy.

Change will be immediate and ongoing. Some actions are already underway or funded this year, others will be delivered over the next two to five years, and more fundamental reforms will be phased over the next decade, aligned with the 10-Year Health Plan. The strategy sets out clear milestones and accountability to ensure progress continues.

We have no plans to publish annual progress reports.

The Government is committed to building a fairer Britain, to ensure people can live well for longer. Our reimagined National Health Service will tackle inequalities in both access and outcomes, as well as give everyone, no matter who they are or where they come from, the means to engage with the NHS on their own terms.

In April, the Government published the Renewed Women’s Health Strategy for England as part of its commitment to prioritise women’s health as we reform the NHS, and to ensure that all women across the country are supported to live healthy, prosperous lives.

Reducing inequalities is hard‑wired throughout this strategy with actions targeted by deprivation, ethnicity, and unmet need, with a focus on marginalised women, community‑based services, neighbourhood health models, and transparent data. Many initiatives explicitly prioritise areas with the highest inequality first, rather than relying on universal rollout alone.

Commitments include publishing an equity good practice guide to enable integrated care boards (ICBs) to better understand and reduce inequalities in heavy periods and menopause. These conditions have been selected as disproportionately affecting women from ethnic minority backgrounds and those women living in the 20% most deprived areas in England.

We have also committed to establishing a women’s voices partnership, a new space for organisations representing women to inform national decision making. The partnership will focus on women most excluded from traditional services.

We will also fund a specialist centre in each region for group-based approaches to high volume low complexity women’s health pathways. This will improve productivity and empower women in common clinical areas, helping reduce waiting lists and supporting self-management.

Menstrual problems, including those caused by endometriosis and menopause are prioritised as the first pathways to be delivered through community-based services and the new virtual hospital, NHS Online. NHS Online will give people on certain pathways the choice of getting the specialist care they need from their home. It will connect patients with clinicians across the country through secure, online appointments accessed through the NHS App.

In November 2025, NHS England’s Statement on Information on Health Inequalities set a clear expectation that ICBs, trusts, and foundation trusts routinely capture and use disability data. This data should be used to identify patterns of unmet need and inequitable access, inform commissioning and service design decision, implement and monitor reasonable adjustments, and improve patient experience, safety, and outcomes for disabled people. NHS England’s Statement on Information on Health Inequalities is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/nhs-englands-statement-on-information-on-health-inequalities/#3-what-are-the-views-of-nhs-england-about-how-these-powers-should-be-exercised

The Renewed Women’s Health Strategy sets out a bold, long‑term plan to transform how the health and care system listens to, supports, and delivers for women and girls. It puts women’s voices and choices at the centre of care, drives faster improvements in services and outcomes that matter most to women, and tackles long‑standing health inequalities across the life course. The strategy aligns with the 10-Year Health Plan to shift care into the community, harness digital innovation, and strengthen prevention so women can live healthier, more fulfilled lives.

A core part of the improved women’s health offer set out in the Renewed Women’s Health Strategy will be neighbourhood women's health services.

This model, learning from the proof-of-concept women's health hubs, will transform women's healthcare in every community in line with our 10-Year Health Plan neighbourhood model.

Where high-quality women's health hubs exist, they will continue to lead service delivery. In other areas we anticipate there will be a dedicated space within broader neighbourhood health centres.

In the future, our vision is that every neighbourhood will provide proactive, specialist, and preventative women's health care that complements and extends the primary care offer, directly delivering intermediate care services and leading population prevention within neighbourhoods, including preconception health, contraception, and screening services.

Learning from the women's health hubs pilot programme is being used to implement neighbourhood working in women's health.

The Renewed Women’s Health Strategy puts the 10-Year Health Plan’s new care model into action to deliver faster, tangible improvements across four outcomes that matter most to women across England. Through the Renewed Strategy, we will support integrated care boards to introduce a single point of access for all non-urgent referrals to gynaecology and women's health services to speed up access to better treatment. We will also fund a specialist centre in each region for group-based approaches to high volume low complexity women’s health pathways, which will improve productivity and empower women in common clinical areas, helping reduce waiting lists and supporting self-management.

We are committed to returning by March 2029 to the National Health Service constitutional standard that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to consultant-led treatment, including for gynaecology. As of March 2026, the waiting list for gynaecology stands at 560,866 with 18-week performance at 60.9%, up from 54.2% since the 2024 General Election.

Our Elective Reform Plan, published in January 2025, sets out reforms we are making to improve gynaecology waiting times across England. This includes innovative models of care that offer care closer to home as well as in the community, piloting gynaecology pathways in community diagnostic centres for patients with post-menopausal bleeding and increasing the relative funding available to incentivise providers to take on more gynaecology procedures. Gynaecology is one of the specialties being prioritised for surgical hubs, which helps to reduce elective waits and increase activity. We are increasing the number of hubs over the next three years so more operations can be carried out.

The Renewed Women’s Health Strategy was published on 15 April 2026 and sets out a bold, long‑term plan to transform how the health and care system listens to, supports, and delivers for women and girls across all regions in England.

It puts women’s voices and choices at the centre of care, drives faster improvements in services and outcomes that matter most to women, and tackles long‑standing health inequalities across the life course. The strategy aligns with the 10-Year Health Plan to shift care into the community, harness digital innovation, and strengthen prevention so women can live healthier, more fulfilled lives.

The Government is committed to publishing a 10 Year Workforce Plan to set out action to create a workforce ready to deliver the transformed service set out in the 10-Year Health Plan. The plan will ensure the National Health Service has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it.

We are committed to returning by March 2029 to the National Health Service constitutional standard that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to consultant-led treatment, including for gynaecology. As of March 2026, the waiting list for gynaecology stands at 560,866 with 18-week performance at 60.9%, up from 54.2% since the Government came to office.

Our Elective Reform Plan, published in January 2025, sets out the reforms we are making to improve gynaecology waiting times across England. This includes innovative models of care that offer care closer to home and in the community, piloting gynaecology pathways in community diagnostic centres for patients with post-menopausal bleeding, and increasing the relative funding available to incentivise providers to take on more gynaecology procedures. Gynaecology is one of the specialties being prioritised for surgical hubs, which helps to reduce elective waits and increase activity. We are increasing the number of hubs over the next three years so more operations can be carried out.

We are working to improve information provision for women currently on waiting lists to offer reassurance, support, and helpful information to manage their condition.

The Government is committed to publishing a 10 Year Workforce Plan to set out the action to create a workforce ready to deliver the transformed service set out in the 10-Year Health Plan.

The 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure the NHS has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

We are committed to returning by March 2029 to the National Health Service constitutional standard that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to consultant-led treatment, including for gynaecology.

Our Elective Reform Plan, published in January 2025, sets out the reforms we are making to improve gynaecology waiting times across England. This includes innovative models of care that offer care closer to home and in the community, piloting gynaecology pathways in community diagnostic centres for patients with post-menopausal bleeding, and increasing the relative funding available to incentivise providers to take on more gynaecology procedures.

Wider elective reforms will help cut waiting times for gynaecology services in Buckinghamshire and across England. These include more consistent clinical triage, tackling missed appointments, delivering new and expanded surgical hubs, and scaling up remote monitoring and use of patient-initiated follow ups.

We also provided new funding for general practice to expand Advice and Guidance (A&G) services. A&G is designed to help general practitioners and hospital specialists to work together and make the best treatment plans for patients, while reducing unnecessary referrals to long waiting lists. This enables patients to be seen more quickly, closer to home, benefiting from earlier specialist input.

We are also introducing an “online hospital”, NHS Online. From 2027, people on certain pathways, including severe menopause symptoms and menstrual problems that may be a sign of endometriosis or fibroids, will have the choice of getting the specialist care they need from their home. NHS Online will help to reduce patient waiting times, delivering the equivalent of up to 8.5 million appointments and assessments in its first three years.

The Renewed Women’s Health Strategy was published on 15 April 2026 and sets out a bold, long‑term plan to transform how the health and care system listens to, supports, and delivers for women and girls across all regions in England.

It puts women’s voices and choices at the centre of care, drives faster improvements in services and outcomes that matter most to women, and tackles long‑standing health inequalities across the life course. The strategy aligns with the 10-Year Health Plan to shift care into the community, harness digital innovation, and strengthen prevention so women can live healthier, more fulfilled lives.

The Government is committed to publishing a 10 Year Workforce Plan to set out action to create a workforce ready to deliver the transformed service set out in the 10-Year Health Plan. The plan will ensure the National Health Service has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it.