By Anne Howard, Deputy Director of Clinical Services, Peppy
The Government has published its renewed Women's Health Strategy for England. After years of campaigning, evidence gathering and, frankly, women being ignored, it represents something genuinely significant. As a clinician who hears these stories every single day, I've been reading it closely. And I have thoughts.
The Women's Health Strategy for England was first published in 2022. The renewed strategy builds on that foundation, setting out updated commitments to address longstanding inequalities in how women experience healthcare. It covers menstrual health, menopause, gynaecological conditions, maternity care, mental health and more.
The language alone marks a shift. The Secretary of State called out "medical misogyny" directly.
That matters because it names the structural reality that women in healthcare have been living with for decades. A system built without women in mind. One-size-fits-all pathways that fit nobody. Pain dismissed. Symptoms normalised. Voices unheard.
The statistics that underpin the strategy are ones I carry with me: 84% of women reported not being listened to by healthcare professionals. The average endometriosis diagnosis time is 9 years and 4 months. Nine years. And four months. That is not a data point. That is a decade of a woman's life spent in pain, confused, dismissed, and waiting.
So yes, the acknowledgement alone matters. But acknowledgement is a starting point, not an ending one.
There are commitments in this strategy that I think are genuinely progressive and worth naming clearly.
Menstrual health and menopause have been prioritised as two of the first NHS Online pathways. This signals that the conditions most commonly dismissed or minimised in clinical settings are now being taken seriously at a system level.
Employers with 250 or more employees will be required to have menopause action plans. This means menopause stops being a wellbeing nice-to-have and becomes an organisational responsibility.
There is a genuine commitment to shifting care into community settings, getting support closer to where women actually live and work. Patient voice is being embedded into funding flows through patient power payments. And critically, future research must now account for sex-based differences. That last point, quiet as it may seem, has the potential to reshape clinical evidence for generations.
These are real, meaningful commitments. I don't want to understate them.
Policy alone won't close this gap.
The NHS is already stretched to capacity. Gynaecology waits currently average 15 weeks. Women living in the most deprived areas can only expect to be in good health until age 50. That statistic should stop all of us in our tracks.
Between where we are today and where this strategy wants to take us, there is a gap. A real, lived, daily gap. And that gap doesn't pause while policy is implemented, while NHS capacity is built, or while the next set of guidance is published.
Women are experiencing that gap right now. At work. At home. In their careers.
The health inequities the Women's Health Strategy addresses are not just personal. They have direct, measurable consequences for the workforce.
These aren't women's problems in isolation. These are workforce problems. Business problems. Leadership problems. When talented, experienced women leave, or reduce their hours, or mask symptoms just to get through the day, organisations lose far more than they realise and rarely connect it back to health.
The strategy implicitly acknowledges that the NHS cannot move fast enough alone. Which means employers have both an opportunity and, I would argue, a responsibility to step into that gap.
Employers don't have to wait for NHS transformation to begin supporting their people better.
What women tell us they need, consistently, is access to someone who listens. Who understands their health across every stage of life, not just in a fifteen-minute GP appointment where they feel rushed, judged, or dismissed. Someone who will follow up, check in, and be there when things get harder before they get better.
At Peppy, we see every day what changes when employers provide that access. When a woman finally gets a clinician who takes her symptoms seriously, who explains what is happening in her body and what her options are, the outcomes change. At work and at home. Presenteeism drops. Confidence returns. Careers that might have quietly ended don't.
Practically, this means employers should be asking:
The renewed Women's Health Strategy sets an ambitious and necessary destination. But employers don't have to wait for the journey to complete before they start helping their people get there.
One of the most powerful things about this strategy is what it signals culturally. When the Government names medical misogyny, it gives permission for the rest of us to name it too. In board meetings. In benefits reviews. In conversations between managers and employees that have, for too long, felt too difficult to have.
The strategy creates momentum. Employers can use that momentum. They can look at their workforce, ask honest questions about where women are struggling and leaving and burning out, and make a decision to act before the gap catches up with them.
Because the women in your organisation aren't waiting. They're navigating these challenges right now, mostly without the support they need.
That's what we're here to change. One conversation, one check-in, one woman finally feeling heard at a time.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Women's Health Strategy for England? The Women's Health Strategy for England is a government plan to address longstanding inequalities in women's healthcare. The renewed strategy, published in 2025, sets out commitments across menstrual health, menopause, gynaecological conditions, maternity and more, including new requirements for employers to introduce menopause action plans.
Are employers required to have a menopause policy? Under the renewed Women's Health Strategy, employers with 250 or more employees will be required to have menopause action plans in place. This reflects growing recognition that menopause is a workplace issue as well as a health one.
How does women's health affect employee retention? Research shows that 1 in 4 women consider leaving work due to menopause symptoms, and 17% of women leave employment within five years of childbirth. Unmanaged women's health issues are a significant and underreported driver of attrition, particularly among mid-career women.
What is medical misogyny? Medical misogyny refers to the systemic bias within healthcare that leads to women's symptoms being dismissed, minimised or misdiagnosed. It contributes to long diagnosis delays for conditions like endometriosis, where the average wait for a diagnosis is currently 9 years and 4 months in England.
How can Peppy help employers support women's health? Peppy gives employees unlimited, confidential access to specialist clinicians across women's health, menopause, fertility, pregnancy and parenthood and men's health, all through an app. Employers use Peppy to fill the gap between what the NHS can currently provide and what their people need.
Anne Howard is Deputy Director of Clinical Services at Peppy. Peppy provides unlimited, confidential access to specialist clinicians through employer benefits, supporting employees across women's health, men's health, fertility, pregnancy and parenthood, and menopause.
Want to understand how your organisation can better support women's health at work? Book a call with the Peppy team.