NHS 10 year plan: another lost decade for women’s health

Abstract

Modernisation without equity risks deepening health inequalities The NHS 10 year plan promises radical and aspirational transformations in healthcare delivery, but it risks recreating and perpetuating structural bias and data gaps in the health system.1 A plan that is “fit for the future” can’t simply modernise or relocate the tools of healthcare delivery but must examine who the NHS is designed to benefit and who it continues to leave behind. The plan resigns women’s health to reproductive health; of its eight specific mentions of women, half relate to reproductive and maternal health. Although these areas are essential, the plan neglects women’s broader health needs and is silent on current gaps in sex and gender data, with the 2022 women’s health strategy also sidelined.2 The plan’s cursory treatment of women’s health reflects an ongoing male default in health research and delivery and echoes a wider failure to integrate sex and gender disaggregated evidence into clinical practice.34 These oversights lead to inequalities in outcomes by sex and gender across specialties from cardiovascular and neurological diseases to psychiatric and musculoskeletal conditions.5 A major pillar of the plan is its proposal to shift care from the hospital to the community. This …