NHS is letting women down through ‘medical misogyny’, says Wes Streeting

“Medical misogyny” in the UK is letting women down, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, has admitted, as a survey showed half of female patients felt they had been dismissed or ignored because of their sex.A report from Mumsnet, which examined data taken from the site over the past decade, warned of “structural and deeply embedded” sexism in UK healthcare. A survey of women using the site found that more than half believed the NHS was institutionally misogynistic.The survey also found that: 50% of women believe they have been dismissed, ignored or not believed by an NHS professional because of their sex. 64% say they have been explicitly told their pain or symptoms were “normal” or “in their head”. 68% think the NHS does not take women’s health concerns seriously. Ahead of the publication of a women’s health strategy, which was announced in 2022 and is expected imminently, Streeting said the report showed that the NHS had let women down too often and for “far too long”. The health secretary said he was “driving change” through more funding, menopause support, moving health services into the community and the introduction of Martha’s rule, which gives patients a right to an urgent second opinion.He added: “Medical misogyny has no place within our NHS. It was founded on the principles of equality, yet time and time again, women are ignored and not believed. I want women across the country to know we’re going to tackle this.”The report, which coincided with International Women’s Day on Sunday, draws on almost 100,000 posts from Mumsnet between 2015 and 2025. The messages describe “dismissal, disbelief or deprioritisation in healthcare settings”, with many users saying they were kept in a holding pattern of “wait and see” instead of being given treatment.One woman with adenomyosis and severe endometriosis who lives in near constant pain said she was dismissed by doctors for years with comments like “period pain is normal, you may have a low pain threshold”. Another said she had been going to doctors for pelvic pain for 22 years before being diagnosed with the condition. “I haven’t been able to have intercourse for years due to the pain it caused,” she said.A woman who went to her doctor about a “burning band of pain” around her uterus was told she “seemed very emotional” and should consider counselling.The report also states that fertility and conception are examples of medical misogyny with “reassurance often experienced not as comfort but as dismissal”.Delays had major consequences for some women, including one who lost two fallopian tubes, an ovary and a section of bowel waiting for endometriosis surgery. She said: “My fertility and bowel function would have been saved if I had been treated years earlier, before the endo spread, when I was first put on the waiting list.”House of Lords research published in 2021 cited multiple studies showing poorer health outcomes for women. A government inquiry in 2020 said an arrogant culture in which serious medical complications were dismissed as “women’s problems” had contributed to a string of healthcare scandals over several decades.“For more than a decade, women on Mumsnet have described the same pattern: pain minimised, symptoms dismissed and a constant need to fight simply to be heard,” said Justine Roberts, Mumsnet’s founder.“Politicians have repeatedly acknowledged that women’s health has been historically overlooked. But acknowledgment without reform does nothing. And every day of delay in fixing the problem means more women left in pain, more diagnoses missed, and more trust eroded.”Mumsnet is also calling for mandatory training on sex-specific bias and women’s health for all health professionals, ending the routine normalisation of women’s pain and the creation of women’s health hubs in each of England’s 42 NHS regions.All but three of these integrated health boards have at least one hub but Mumsnet said implementation was uneven. It called for ringfenced funding, clear standards and transparent accountability to create “visible and measurable” infrastructure.Roberts added: “Few examples capture medical misogyny more clearly than the expectation that women should tolerate severe pain during gynaecological procedures. No woman should be expected to endure avoidable pain as the price of care.”