Renewed Women’s Health Strategy for England (15 April 2026)

Summary

The renewed Women’s Health Strategy sets out how the UK Government will improve women’s health and healthcare over next 10 years.

Content

The renewed Women’s Health Strategy will apply the 10 Year Health Plan’s new care model to make much faster, more decisive progress focused on four health outcomes:

The first commitment - and the golden thread of this strategy - is to make women’s voices and choices central in healthcare.

The Government will:

• Establish the women’s voices partnership in 2027, a new space for organisations representing women to inform national decision making, and - over time - regional planning and delivery. The partnership will have a focus on organisations representing women most excluded from traditional services.
• Develop and implement PREMs, and where appropriate PROMs, for core women’s health pathways over the next 5 years, starting with gynaecological outpatient procedures.
• Help reduce variation in how GPs listen to and respond to women, using GP Patient Survey data to launch a quality improvement programme within 2 years to help GPs identify problems.
• Within 3 years, co-produce with women standards of care for the delivery of gynaecological procedures such as hysteroscopy, ensuring all women give informed consent and are offered a choice of pain relief.
• Improve access to contraception, including ensuring all women can access emergency contraception for free from a pharmacy and encouraging simpler access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) within 2 years.
• Support the sustainability of abortion services, including changing NHS payments and supporting integrated care boards (ICBs) to implement the NHS abortion commissioning guidance. And we will continue safe access zones outside abortion clinics - all within one year.
• Work with stakeholders to review the evidence for, and implications of, rolling out a graded model of care for repeated pregnancy loss.
• Improve care and support between pregnancies for marginalised communities, working together with the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Maternity Disparities Consortium. We will engage marginalised communities to co-develop, co-implement and co-evaluate care and support before and between pregnancies, providing the UK’s first blueprint for such care by 2030.
• Improve perinatal mental health, parent-infant relationship and infant feeding support in 75 local councils. Backed by over £900 million, through the Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies programme we are taking action to create a more integrated, accessible system of support right in the heart of local neighbourhoods.
• Expand our world-leading prenatal genomic testing offer to provide vital information to women during pregnancy and to support reproductive decision making

Second, we will transform NHS performance in services that matter most to women

The Government will:

• Launch a new programme to improve education for girls about their menstrual health, investing an additional £1 million from this year to support targeted work in schools and community settings. This will support girls’ knowledge about menstrual health and when to seek healthcare.
• Introduce a menopause question into the routine NHS Health Check this year, raising awareness of symptoms and giving women the confidence to seek timely help.
• Shift women’s health services into primary care and community settings, including a single point of access for gynaecology referrals and redesigned clinical pathways for heavy periods, menopause and uro-gynaecology within 3 years.
• Fund this year a specialist centre in each region for group-based approaches to women’s health pathways including contraception, heavy periods, uro-gynaecology, and menopause. Each regional specialist centre will act as a demonstrator and centre of excellence, supporting local areas to design, implement and evaluate group-based pathways. We will roll these out in areas of highest health need or highest health inequality first.
• Prioritise menstrual problems (caused by issues such as endometriosis, fibroids and adenomyosis) and menopause as 2 of the first 9 pathways to be established in the new virtual hospital, NHS Online, launching in 2027.
• Support early diagnosis of osteoporosis and improved bone health by funding 20 new dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scanners in priority locations, enabled by £2.6 million investment in the financial year ending 2026. This is on top of the £1.9 million already invested in the financial year ending 2025. This will provide an estimated 60,000 scans per year and improve image quality for patients.
• Improve safety in maternity services, providing better care and improve women’s experiences around birth through the NHS Maternal Care Bundle and acting on the findings of the independent National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation and the Secretary of State’s National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce.
• Improve facilities to ensure bereaved parents have appropriate spaces. This year we allocated up to £9 million to over 40 trusts to enhance their bereavement facilities or estates.

Third, we will support all women to lead healthy, prosperous lives

The Government will:

• Deliver our aim to eliminate cervical cancer by 2040, including rolling out home testing kits for human papilloma virus (HPV), providing greater convenience and access. We will make HPV vaccination available in local community pharmacies to reach those who missed school vaccinations. Both are available from this year.
• Expand genomic testing for inherited causes of major diseases within a year, including BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes associated with higher lifetime risk of breast and ovarian cancer.
• Roll out breast pain and post menopausal bleeding clinics nationally by the end of 2026 and invest in our wider community diagnostic estate as we deliver our new National Cancer Plan for England.
• Tackle the biggest causes of death and poor health in women by improving our focus on cardiovascular disease risk management and care, publishing a new modern service framework this year.
• Tackle rising obesity rates - a risk for multiple women’s health problems, including some cancers. We will support women to lead more active lives and improve their diets through campaigns, investment in sports, digital tools and supporting access to healthier food.
• Support women to drink less alcohol and smoke less - including creating the first smoke-free generation.
• Improve care for women living with frailty and dementia, publishing a modern service framework for frailty and dementia.
• Halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) within a decade. As part of the health system’s contribution, we will invest up to £50 million to transform support for victims of child sexual abuse and exploitation across every NHS region in England, as well as rolling out a domestic abuse and sexual violence referral service and additional investment for victims and survivors.
• Improve support for women sleeping rough through helping councils to design and deliver effective outreach and services alongside NHS services.
• Support women to enter and remain in work through better treatment and management of MSK conditions. MSK conditions are one of the leading conditions reported by people who are economically inactive (including due to long-term sickness), with women at higher risk than men.
• Support women affected by menopause in their jobs by introducing new requirements on employers with 250 or more employees to publish an action plan including support for employees experiencing menopause, starting in 2027, subject to secondary legislation.
• Partner with Vanguard employers as part of the Keep Britain Working Review to test how we can better support good health in work - with a focus on women’s health across the life course.
• Give carers more power and convenience through the NHS App. When fully rolled out, the new My Carer function in the NHS App will allow people to securely prove they are providing care, book appointments and communicate with their loved one's care team.

Fourth, we will create an approach to research and development that works for and empowers women

The Government will:

• Accelerate the deployment and spread of innovations that benefit women’s health, launching a FemTech healthcare challenge within 2 years with a pot of £1.5 million. This will enable systems to work with promising FemTech developers addressing areas of unmet need, with a focus on community service models addressing health inequalities.
• Launch the NIHR R&D Innovation Catalyst this year to provide wrap around support for high priority innovations, with R&D funding available across all translational phases of research if main milestones are met. We will ensure the R&D Innovation Catalyst considers women’s health innovations throughout its operation, both for reproductive and pregnancy conditions, and by ensuring equity in its approach to innovations for any disease.
• Ensure women are not left behind in research. From now, NIHR will only fund research that appropriately considers sex-based differences. We will also make it easier for women to participate in clinical trials by integrating the Be Part of Research service on the NHS App - and in time automatically match patients with studies based on their own health data and interests.
• Support female founders in health and care. Within a year, through the NIHR we will launch a new accelerator for female founders with innovations addressing women’s health priorities. Our new programme will provide funding and support through a programme including mentoring and advice for entrepreneurs, market testing and access, scale-up and commercialisation models.