Intensive care admissions fall by half

The number of babies admitted to intensive care with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) has fallen sharply following the introduction of the NHS maternal vaccination programme, according to new figures from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).

Data published on 13 August shows that across the 20 NHS trusts participating in UKHSA’s surveillance programme, 63 infants under six months were admitted to intensive care or higher dependency units with confirmed RSV chest infections during the 2025–26 winter.

That compares with 131 admissions across the same trusts during the previous winter – a reduction of around 50 per cent.

The figures provide the first indication of the impact of a full year of the maternal RSV vaccination programme, which began in September 2024.

The vaccine is routinely offered from 28 weeks of pregnancy, allowing antibodies generated by the mother to pass through the placenta and provide protection to the baby during the first months of life, when RSV can present the greatest risk.

UKHSA has previously reported that maternal vaccination can provide more than 80 per cent protection against hospital admission for newborn babies.

Uptake remains at around 60 per cent

Despite the positive results, the latest figures also highlight the number of pregnant women who are still not receiving the vaccine.

Between March 2025 and February 2026, 61.7 per cent of women giving birth had received an RSV vaccination.

UKHSA has warned that this means many thousands of babies remain at risk of an infection which can cause severe bronchiolitis, breathing difficulties and, in the most serious cases, require intensive care.

The reduction is also being seen elsewhere in the health system. Peak weekly A&E attendances for infant bronchiolitis were lower during the latest RSV season, while the peak itself was shorter than in previous winters.

Dr Conall Watson, Immunisation Consultant at UKHSA, said the figures demonstrated that the vaccine was already preventing serious illness, while urging pregnant women who have not yet been vaccinated to contact their maternity service or GP.

Health and Social Care Secretary Yvette Cooper said maternity and child health must be “at the heart of our NHS”, adding that the Government wanted to see the vaccine effectively rolled out across the country.

The next challenge: reaching the remaining 40 per cent

For policymakers, the figures create a new question. If the programme is already delivering significant reductions in serious illness at current uptake levels, how much further could those benefits be extended by reaching the women and communities that the existing system is not reaching?

Curia has previously developed proposals for a Vaccination Infant and Maternity Scale Up Programme, designed around targeted interventions in communities with lower vaccine uptake.

The proposed approach would work with NHS trusts, integrated care systems, local authorities, GP surgeries, maternity services, child health clinics and family hubs to identify barriers to vaccination and test locally tailored approaches. It also proposed using community engagement, multilingual information and frontline healthcare professionals to address cultural, socio-economic and practical barriers to uptake.

Rather than relying solely on a national communications campaign, the programme envisaged working directly with local health systems to understand why particular groups were not taking up vaccination and developing interventions around those findings.

Caroline Temmink, NHS director of vaccinations, said:

“Today’s analysis is fantastic news, thanks to NHS staff dozens of new-borns have potentially avoided being admitted to intensive care after their mother received her RSV jab during pregnancy – the vaccine is highly effective at protecting babies from experiencing RSV related complications in the first few months of their life.

“Although RSV spreads most in winter, this virus poses a risk all year round, so if you’re more than 28 weeks pregnant, we would encourage you to speak with your local maternity service or GP practice to find out how you and your newborn can get protected.”

From National Success to Targeted Local Action

Speaking to Politics UK following the publication of the latest UKHSA figures, policy institute Curia’s Chief Executive Ben Howlett welcomed the impact of the vaccination programme but argued that the remaining uptake gap now requires greater attention.

“The halving of intensive care admissions demonstrates just how effective the maternal RSV vaccination programme can be, and the Government and NHS should rightly be encouraged by these results. But with uptake still only around 60 per cent, there remains a significant opportunity to protect many more babies.

“The next challenge is ensuring that the programme reaches those communities where uptake remains lowest. Curia has already developed a targeted model bringing together local health systems, maternity services, GPs, and community organisations to understand the barriers to vaccination and deliver interventions that work for individual communities.

“We have written to the former Secretary of State offering to work with government on this and have yet to receive a response. In light of today’s evidence, we would urge the Department of Health and Social Care and UKHSA to work with us to explore how targeted local interventions could help close the remaining uptake gap and ensure the benefits of this programme are felt by families in every part of the country.”

Working with UK Healthcare and Life Sciences Innovation (UKHLSI)’s member, Essential Parent, Curia’s previous model proposed measuring changes in vaccination rates against baseline data alongside parent engagement, healthcare professional participation and wider public health outcomes, allowing successful approaches to be identified before wider rollout.

From national success to targeted delivery

The latest results represent a significant public health success. Fewer babies requiring intensive care means fewer families experiencing severe illness and potentially less pressure on NHS services during the winter months.

But the figures also underline the importance of implementation.

With close to four in ten women giving birth still not vaccinated against RSV, the next stage of the programme may increasingly be about understanding the reasons behind that variation – whether they relate to awareness, access, confidence, language, local service design or engagement with healthcare services.

The evidence published by UKHSA suggests the intervention itself works. The policy challenge now is ensuring that protection reaches more of the families who could benefit from it.

Find out more

To find out more about Curia’s work on increasing the vaccine uptake rate and work of UK Healthcare and Life Sciences Innovation (UKHLSI) to bring new innovators into the healthcare system, please contact enquiries@ukhlsi.co.uk or team@curiauk.com

The UK is widely recognised as one of the world’s leading life sciences ecosystems. Its universities, research institutions, NHS datasets, clinical expertise, and thriving innovation sector give it a strong platform from which to lead the next generation of healthcare transformation. 

Yet across the health and life sciences sector, a familiar problem continues to hold the country back – the UK is highly effective at generating innovation, but far less consistent at adopting it at scale. 

That was the central theme of a parliamentary roundtable on Accelerating the Adoption of Innovation and Artificial Intelligence in UK Life Sciences, held in the House of Commons earlier this year. The event brought together parliamentarians, clinicians, life sciences leaders, innovators, industry representatives, and policy experts to examine what needs to change if artificial intelligence (AI), diagnostics, genomics, data, and digital innovation are to deliver meaningful benefits for patients, the NHS, and the UK economy. 

Opening the session, former Minister of State and Member of Parliament for Cambridge, Daniel Zeichner MP welcomed attendees to Parliament and highlighted the importance of life sciences to the UK’s national growth agenda. He pointed to Cambridge’s role as a major life sciences hub, while also stressing that the policy challenge lies not only in scientific discovery, but in ensuring that expertise, and innovation are translated into successful adoption further down the line. 

Chairing the discussion, former Chief Executive of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), Professor Gillian Leng CBE set out the scale of the challenge. Drawing on her 20 years at NICE, she argued that implementation and adoption have long been among the greatest barriers facing new technologies. 

She recalled that debates about adoption were not new. Even in the early 2000s, discussions in Parliament focused on why proven technologies, such as insulin pumps, were not being taken up consistently across the NHS. While some nationally driven innovations have been implemented quickly, many medical technologies still take years to reach widespread uptake. 

Diagnostics and the Adoption Gap

For the Chief Executive of the British In Vitro Diagnostics Association (BIVDA), Helen Dent, the adoption challenge facing AI-enabled diagnostics reflects a wider, pre-existing problem. She argued that the biggest barrier to AI diagnostics is not just AI itself, but the NHS’s difficulty in adopting diagnostics more broadly. 

Dent pointed to a lack of clarity about what commissioners want, long procurement timelines, reimbursement challenges, and fragmented decision-making. While national procurement does not necessarily mean a single supplier, she argued that AI diagnostics must be interoperable and aligned across the system if they are to work effectively. 

A recurring theme was the need for capital funding. Dent argued that many innovative diagnostics and technologies require upfront investment, yet the NHS too often relies on long-term contractual arrangements that make it difficult to replace older equipment or create a route in for new technologies. 

She warned that when innovators are forced to carry the cost of NHS adoption delays, it affects not only individual products but the wider life sciences economy. Capital investment in innovation, she argued, could support domestic companies, strengthen local skills and jobs, attract foreign direct investment, and create a more sustainable route for new technologies to reach patients. 

Cybersecurity, Data and Trust 

Vice President and Head of Information Technology and Cybersecurity at Bicycle Therapeutics, Matt Harrison shifted the discussion to data security and strategic risk. 

As AI becomes more embedded in drug discovery, clinical development, and healthcare operations, he argued that cybersecurity and data integrity are no longer purely technical issues. In life sciences, data is one of the sector’s most valuable assets. Protecting that data is essential not only for organisational resilience, but also for public trust. 

Harrison noted that AI is changing the cybersecurity landscape by enabling faster identification and exploitation of vulnerabilities. In response, he suggested that cybersecurity will increasingly need to become more automated, with AI helping to create what he described as a “self-healing envelope” around systems. 

He also warned that public confidence matters. If citizens do not trust institutions to handle health data securely, the UK risks losing one of its greatest advantages: the ability to use health data responsibly to improve patient outcomes, support discovery, and grow the life sciences sector. 

The debate also touched on regulatory agility. Harrison referenced moves by regulators internationally to monitor clinical data more dynamically, suggesting that the UK must consider how its own regulatory environment can support faster, safer development of novel therapies. 

A System Design Challenge 

Founder and Chairman of UKHLSI partners Digital4Health Worldwide, Carlos Díez Ruza argued that the UK’s challenge is fundamentally one of system design. 

Carlos Díez Ruza offered a global perspective to challenges faced by the UK Life Sciences Sector

In his view, and from a global perspective, the UK does not lack innovation. It has world-class universities, a strong research base, and a large pool of innovators. The problem is that too much innovation fails to move from pilot stage to scaled deployment. 

Díez Ruza argued that the UK needs clearer pathways for adoption, better architecture, and a more structured approach to integrating innovation across the health system. Too often, stakeholders speak different languages: innovators, clinicians, commissioners, procurement teams, regulators, and policymakers all operate within systems that are not sufficiently aligned. 

He also drew comparisons with other international healthcare systems, arguing that the UK should be proud of its strengths but willing to learn from countries that have taken different approaches to prevention, incentives, integration, and system governance. 

One of the starkest points made during the session was that pilots are not enough. Repeatedly testing promising innovations without creating routes to adoption risks wasting time, money, and goodwill. The question, participants suggested, should not be whether the UK can generate more pilots, but whether it can create the mechanisms needed to scale what works. 

Procurement Must Be Rewired for Innovation 

As is frequently the case at UKAI and UKHLSI sessions, procurement emerged as one of the strongest themes of the discussion. Participants argued that NHS procurement processes remain too slow, too fragmented, and too focused on buying products rather than outcomes. 

Dent argued that if government has already funded the development of an innovation, it should be far easier for the NHS to adopt it. Existing procurement rules, she suggested, are often interpreted in ways that create unnecessary barriers. The problem is not always the law itself, but local procedures, risk aversion, and outdated purchasing models. 

The discussion also raised the need for national standards. A national decision-making framework would not mean choosing one supplier for the whole NHS. Rather, it could establish minimum standards, evidence expectations, interoperability requirements, and safety thresholds, while allowing a range of suppliers to compete and innovate. 

Several contributors noted that procurement teams within Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and trusts are often asked to assess highly complex technologies without the specialist expertise needed to judge clinical value, technical performance, cybersecurity, data governance, and interoperability. This can lead either to poor decisions or no decisions at all. 

The COVID-19 pandemic was repeatedly cited as an example of what can happen when the system has urgency, clarity, funding, and shared objectives. While no one argued for emergency procurement as a permanent model, participants suggested that lessons from the pandemic should be reviewed and applied to innovation adoption more broadly. 

Prevention, Public Confidence, and the Social Contract 

The discussion also moved beyond technology adoption to consider the wider purpose of healthcare reform. 

Director of Corporate Governance at Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Nabil Jamshid argued that the debate must be linked to the NHS’s wider shift towards prevention, community care, and digital transformation. He questioned whether enough attention is being paid to building public confidence in the use of health data and AI. 

A major challenge, he suggested, is the need to renew the social contract between citizens and the health system. People often allow private technology companies to hold vast amounts of personal data yet may feel more concerned about the NHS using data to improve care. That contradiction points to a wider need for public engagement, explanation and trust-building. 

Dent echoed this point, noting that most people are taught to interact with the NHS only when they are unwell. If the health system is to become more preventive and digitally enabled, citizens will need to understand how to engage with it differently. 

From Debate to Delivery 

In closing reflections, Chief Executive and Co-Founder of UKHLSI, Joanne Bekis argued that the UK has major opportunities but also clear barriers to overcome. She highlighted the need for better regulation, clearer AI guidance, improved procurement, capital funding for innovation and stronger incentives for start-ups. 

She also stressed that the UK is “data rich”, with the NHS number providing a potentially powerful basis for joined-up care and research. However, that opportunity can only be realised if systems can communicate with each other and data is used safely, effectively, and consistently. 

Natasa Mihajlovic, from the UKAI Life Sciences Working Group, reflected that the session had focused not only on what needs to change, but how it can happen. She argued that businesses need a clearer platform through which to understand standards, engage with the NHS and contribute to responsible adoption. 

Final Thought 

The key message from the roundtable was that the UK is not short of innovation. It is short of adoption pathways that are clear, properly funded, nationally supported, and designed around outcomes. 

If the UK wants to lead in AI and life sciences, it must move beyond fragmented pilots and create the conditions for proven innovation to spread. That means stronger national direction, better procurement, smarter regulation, secure and trusted data use, and a more serious focus on prevention and patient benefit. 

As Professor Leng concluded, the challenge is substantial, but achievable: the UK needs national drive, clear direction, the right systems, and the right incentives. The opportunity is already here. The task now is to turn it into delivery. 

BIVDA and Bicycle Therapeutics are members of Curia’s Health, Care, and Life Sciences Research Group. 

To find out more about UKHLSI, and UKAI, please visit www.ukhlsi.co.uk and www.ukhlsi.co.uk or email Partnerships Director, Ben McDermott Ben.mcdermott@chamberuk.com. 

Catherine Thompson

Former Associate Director of Clinical Policy, Strategy and IFR, West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership (NHS ICB

Women’s health services have too often been organised around fragmented pathways, leaving women to navigate a system that does not reflect the full reality of their lives. Drawing on insights from the North of England Accelerating Innovation in the NHS Women’s Health Sprint, Catherine Thompson argues in the foreword of the report that the NHS already has examples of what works. The priority now is to move beyond pilots and embed community-based, life-course women’s health services as standard provision across the system. (Photo: Catherine Thompson presenting the sprint findings to the group in Barnsley)

Women’s health services do not need another exercise in describing what is wrong. The problems are well understood. Too many women still face fragmented care, long waits, inconsistent access, and a system that too often expects them to advocate for themselves before support is offered.

The more urgent question is whether the NHS is prepared to act on what it already knows.

That is the key message from Catherine Thompson’s foreword to Reframing Women’s Health: From Fragmentation To System Reform. Drawing on the North of England Accelerating Innovation in the NHS Women’s Health Sprint in Barnsley, Thompson makes the case that the challenge is no longer one of diagnosis, but delivery.

Across West Yorkshire and beyond, the system has already seen what better women’s health provision can look like. Community-based services, integrated pathways, and more holistic models of care are not abstract ideas. They exist and operate effectively in many parts of the country. They are already improving access, reducing pressure on secondary care, and giving women a clearer route to the support they need.

But there is a postcode lottery in service delivery – these examples remain too dependent on local leadership, local conditions, and local capacity. The result is a mixed picture, where pockets of excellence sit alongside areas where provision remains underdeveloped. For women, that means access to good care can still depend too heavily on where they live.

The gap in the middle

At the heart of the problem is a model of care that has not kept pace with need. Women’s health services are still too often organised around a binary structure: general practice on one side, secondary care on the other.

That leaves too little space in between.

Yet it is precisely this middle layer where much of the opportunity lies. It is where earlier intervention can happen. It is where continuity of care can be built. It is where women can receive support before conditions worsen, before hospital referral becomes necessary, and before avoidable distress becomes normalised.

For many women, the current system does not provide that route. Instead, they are passed between services, asked to repeat their story, or left waiting for care that could have been delivered sooner in a more joined-up community setting.

This is not just inefficient. It is unfair.

Women’s health is not only a clinical issue

One of the strongest arguments in Thompson’s foreword is that women’s health must be understood in its wider social context. The way women experience health is shaped not only by clinical symptoms, but by culture, stigma, trust, work, family responsibilities, and expectations about what is considered “normal”.

“The challenge is not identifying what works, it is all about implementing it consistently.” Catherine Thompson

For too long, women’s health has been reduced to a set of individual services or conditions. That approach misses the broader life-course reality: adolescence, menstrual health, reproductive health, pregnancy, menopause, later life, and the long-term impact of prevention or its absence.

Without a clear shared narrative of what good women’s health looks like, women themselves may not know when something is wrong or what support should be available. The system, in turn, struggles to design services around women’s lives rather than around institutional boundaries.

This is why awareness and empowerment are not optional extras – Thompson argues they are core parts of reform.

Women need clear, trusted information. Services need to be easier to access. Professionals need the confidence and structures to respond properly. And the system needs to stop treating women’s ability to self-advocate as a substitute for good design.

The answer is implementation

The Sprint highlighted two immediate priorities

1. Empowerment and awareness. There remains significant unmet need, with many women unaware of what support should be available to them. Better education, clearer communication and stronger public confidence are essential if women are to engage with their health earlier and more effectively.
2. Development of community-based services. Crucially, this is not primarily a workforce skills problem. The capability already exists across the NHS and wider system. The problem is that it is not organised cohesively enough.

Bringing that capability together into accessible, community-based models of care offers one of the clearest opportunities for improvement. It would support earlier intervention, reduce unnecessary referrals, improve patient experience and help shift women’s health from reactive care to prevention.

But this cannot be left to isolated pilots. The system has tested many of these approaches already, with significant data available. It was demonstrated at the sprint that women’s health services can work, the question is whether commissioning, funding, and national expectations will now support them to work everywhere.

From optional innovation to standard provision

The main report, Reframing Women’s Health: From Fragmentation To System Reform, argues that women’s health reform must move beyond fragmented services and towards a coherent, life-course model of care. Thompson’s foreword speaks directly to that central theme.

Local insight has shown what is possible. Women’s Health Hubs and community-based models demonstrate how care can be brought closer to women, organised around need, and delivered in a way that feels more accessible and joined up.

The task now is to make that the norm.

As was demonstrated in many places across West Yorkshire, that will require clear direction, appropriate resourcing, and stronger alignment between national policy, regional planning and local delivery. It will also require a shift in mindset: women’s health cannot be treated as a specialist side issue or a discretionary area of innovation. It must be seen as a core part of a modern health system.

The future direction is achievable. In many places, it has already been demonstrated.

What is needed now is the will to move from insight to implementation, from pilots to scale, and from optional innovation to standard provision.

To find out more about the UK Healthcare and Life Sciences Innovation Women’s Health Working Group, contact chair Paula.Sherriff@curiauk.com

The creation of a Maternity and Neonatal Commissioner could give families the national voice they have long needed, but only if the role has the authority to force action.

A system that has failed to listen

The Government’s decision to appoint England’s first Maternity and Neonatal Commissioner is the most visible response yet to Baroness Valerie Amos’ landmark investigation into maternity and neonatal services. It is also an acknowledgement that the current system has too often failed to listen, failed to learn, and failed to act with the urgency that women, babies and families deserve.

Published on 30 June, the Government response accepts the need for a new independent commissioner to speak up for women, babies and families, co-chair the National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce with the Secretary of State, and help drive national change. It also promises a National Action Plan in December 2026, £41 million in additional safety funding for maternity and neonatal facilities, new national standards for maternity triage, the rollout of the Perinatal Equity and Anti-Discrimination Programme, and 1,000 temporary roles to support newly qualified midwives into the NHS.

The scale of the problem set out by Baroness Amos is stark. Her investigation heard directly from women, families and staff, alongside local investigations into 12 NHS trusts, and describes a system that is fragmented, overly complex, too slow to learn and too inconsistent in how it responds when families raise concerns. The report identifies recurring failures to listen to women and families, racism and discrimination, weak accountability, workforce pressure, poor culture, and outdated estates and digital systems.

Pointing to the findings of racial discrimination in the report, Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon OBE, Chair of the Race Equality Engagement Group, said:

“I would also like to place on record my thanks to Baroness Amos for leading this vital and timely report.

“The findings highlighted by Baroness Amos’ important report reveal the deeply entrenched racial inequalities that exist in maternity and neonatal services in England. 

“Racism and discrimination have no place in our health service. The fact that women have received worse care due to their race or background is totally unacceptable and cannot continue. I look forward to the government’s urgent work to now deliver the manifesto commitment to set a target for tackling the maternal mortality gap.”

Kate Brintworth, Chief Midwifery Officer for England, said: 

“Too many women, babies and families have been harmed, bereaved or badly let down by maternity care, and too often women and families who raised concerns were not listened to.

“This has to change. Women and families must be taken seriously when they say something is wrong, and staff must feel able to speak up when they are worried about safety.

“The NHS is determined to address this quickly and we will work with the new Maternity and Neonatal Commissioner to achieve this. NHS leaders are also coming together today to set out how immediate actions can be taken across all maternity and neonatal services in England to improve safety and the support and care offered to women and families.

“I know recent reports will be deeply worrying for women and families, but please continue to speak to your midwife or maternity team if you have any concerns. They understand and want to make sure you have the care and support you need.”

Commenting on the report, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, James Murray, said: 

“For too long women, babies and families have been failed by a system that didn’t listen. Their stories are heart-breaking and demand action. 

“I am grateful to Baroness Amos for her work on this landmark review, which is a turning point. Appointing the UK’s first ever Maternity and Neonatal Commissioner will drive lasting change and make sure women and families are never ignored again.”

Why the commissioner matters

The central recommendation is a Maternity and Neonatal Commissioner, accountable to Parliament, with responsibility for holding the system to account, championing the voices of women and families, and overseeing a new Modern Service Framework. That framework would set national standards for safe, consistent and compassionate care, moving maternity policy away from guidance that can be unevenly applied and towards clearer expectations for what every service should provide.

But this cannot be treated as a new discovery. Dame Donna Ockenden’s Nottingham review, published last week, underlined the same uncomfortable truth: many of the issues described were already known. The independent review into maternity services at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust examined more than 2,500 family cases, involved more than 160 reviewers, held meetings with more than 500 families, and heard from more than 830 current and former staff.

Ockenden’s own reaction is telling: the Amos findings were nothing she did not already know. That is the central challenge for ministers, NHS England, regulators and trust boards. The country does not lack evidence of what is wrong. It lacks a reliable mechanism for turning evidence into safer care.

Maternity Advisor, Michelle Welsh MP said:

“I am pleased that a Maternity and Neonatal Commissioner role will be established, and I look forward to seeing a robust appointment process take place.

“I want to thank Baroness Amos for her hard and thorough work on this report, as well as those who have contributed to this effort – most importantly the families who have shared their experiences, alongside the organisations that have supported this work.

“It is now vital that we work together to deliver meaningful and lasting improvements in maternity care centred around safety and compassion.”

A warning from wider NHS culture reviews

That warning has also been echoed by Curia Health, Care, and Life Sciences Research Group Advisory Board member, Professor Mike Bewick, whose review into culture at University Hospitals Birmingham found that fear, bullying and reluctance to speak up can have a direct impact on patient safety.

Reflecting on the Amos Review, Professor Bewick said:

“The Amos Review is a stark reminder that we cannot continue to accept incremental change in the face of repeated failures. Its findings make clear that improving maternity care requires fundamental, system-wide reform, with courageous leadership and robust accountability at every level. The recommendation to establish an independent Maternity Commissioner is a significant opportunity to provide the national leadership, oversight and challenge needed to drive sustained improvement and ensure recommendations are translated into action. Women, babies and families deserve more than repeated reviews – they deserve a system that learns, acts and is accountable for delivering safe, equitable and compassionate care.”

His intervention matters because maternity safety is not only a maternity issue. It is a test of whether the NHS can create cultures where staff are able to speak up, families are believed, leaders are held to account and warning signs are acted on before harm becomes scandal.

Triage as a test of delivery

The most immediate area for reform is triage. Baroness Amos describes maternity triage as increasingly becoming the A&E service for pregnancy, where warning signs should be identified early. The report recommends dedicated midwife resource, access to senior clinical decision-makers, board-level oversight, a national triage standard within 12 months, and quarterly publication of triage performance data.

“Racism and discrimination have no place in our health service.” Baroness Lawrence

This is where policy becomes practical. A woman who calls or arrives with concerns should not depend on local staffing patterns, estate pressures or whether a unit has chosen to prioritise triage that day. National standards will only matter if they are measured, published and treated as core patient safety indicators.

The lessons for maternity safety

The lessons from Amos and Ockenden are clear. First, listening must be treated as a clinical safety function, not a soft measure of patient experience. Second, accountability has to be built into the system before harm occurs, rather than reconstructed through inquiries afterwards. Third, racism, discrimination and poor culture must be treated as safety risks, visible in board papers, regulatory judgements and workforce planning. Fourth, national standards must be matched by local delivery, with consequences where services fail to improve. The analysis is therefore simple but uncomfortable: another review will not fix maternity care unless the system is forced to act on what it already knows.

There are risks. Some campaigners have warned that concentrating responsibility in one commissioner could raise expectations that one person cannot meet, while others continue to argue for a statutory public inquiry. Baroness Amos has defended the commissioner model as an independent voice for women and families, and has argued that urgent change should start now rather than wait years for another inquiry.

Chief Executive of UK Healthcare and Life Sciences Innovation (UKHLSI), Jo Bekis said:

“The Amos Review is a stark reminder that we cannot accept a maternity system where avoidable harm continues to occur. Its findings reinforce the urgent need for meaningful, system-wide change that puts safety, compassion, accountability and the voices of women and families at the heart of maternity care.

“Every woman deserves high-quality care, every family deserves to be heard, every newborn deserves nothing less than safety and every avoidable tragedy must drive us to act now.”

The December action plan must be specific

The Government should be judged on whether it has not only accepted the headlines of the Amos report, but also on how it builds the machinery to deliver them. By December, the National Action Plan must show who is responsible, what will change first, how progress will be measured, what happens when trusts fail to improve, and how families will know that their voices have led to action.

Maternity care is often described through the language of trust. That trust has been badly damaged. Rebuilding it will require more than empathy after harm has occurred. It will require a system that listens before harm happens, acts when warning signs appear, tells the truth when things go wrong, and treats safety, equity and compassion as core measures of performance.

That Curia report helped frame women’s health as a national growth and workforce issue, rather than a narrow clinical concern. It showed how unmanaged menopause symptoms, untreated gynaecological conditions, poor access to contraception, and long waits for care can push women out of work, reduce hours, increase pressure on families, and add avoidable demand to the NHS. 

“Women’s health must now be understood as both a clinical priority and as socio economic infrastructure.” 

Curia’s latest report commissioned by membership body for healthcare and life sciences innovators, UK Healthcare and Life Sciences Innovation (UKHLSI), Reframing Women’s Health: From Fragmentation To System Reform, takes the argument into its next phase. 

From the Government’s publication of their renewed strategy, it is clear they understand that women’s health matters. Curia argues that it is now down to the NHS and government to make care work properly in practice. 

The report follows the North of England Accelerating NHS Innovation Summit Women’s Health Sprint in Barnsley, which brought together NHS leaders, regional mayors, local authorities, industry, academia, and the third sector. The Sprint was co facilitated by former Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, and Curia Health, Care, and Life Sciences Research Group Advisory Board member, Paula Sherriff, and then Associate Director for Clinical Policy, Strategy and Individual Funding Requests at West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, Catherine Thompson. Catherine has since moved on from the role. 

What emerges is a practical and at times uncomfortable diagnosis of the problem. Women’s health services are still too fragmented, too dependent on where someone lives, and too often shaped around the convenience of existing structures rather than the realities of women’s lives. 

A System Women Have to Navigate 

The report describes a health system still built around a narrow route into care. On one side, general practice, and hospital-based specialist services on the other. For many women, that means trying to get support through an overstretched GP system, waiting for a referral, then joining a queue for secondary care. 

The missing piece is the space in between. 

Many women’s health needs do not sit neatly in one part of the system. Heavy menstrual bleeding, menopause symptoms, pelvic pain, contraception, incontinence, fertility concerns, mental health, and long-term conditions often cut across primary care, sexual and reproductive health, community services, and gynaecology. 

Yet those services are frequently commissioned, funded, and measured separately. The result is familiar to too many women – repeat appointments, unclear referral routes, long waits, inconsistent advice, and a feeling of having to push the system at every stage. 

“This fragmentation is not incidental. It is designed into the system.” 

This is why the report argues that fragmentation is designed into the current model. It is not just a question of pressure or demand. The architecture itself makes joined up care harder than it needs to be. 

Strategy Is Welcome. Delivery Will Decide Its Value 

The report lands alongside the renewed Women’s Health Strategy for England, which it welcomes as an important step forward. The strategy’s focus on women’s voices, single points of access, redesigned pathways, women’s health hubs, FemTech, menstrual health education and priority conditions such as endometriosis, fibroids, and menopause reflects much of the agenda Curia has been calling for. 

That alignment matters. It suggests the national conversation has moved on from whether women’s health needs greater attention to how services should be redesigned. 

But the report is also clear that national strategy will mean little without delivery machinery behind it. 

The renewed strategy now needs a proper implementation plan, with named responsibilities, timelines, funding, performance measures, and accountability.  

“The challenge is not identifying what works, it is all about implementing it consistently.” 

Integrated care boards need clarity on what they are expected to deliver. Local systems need support to scale models that already work. Women need to see the difference in access, experience, and outcomes. 

Without that, the risk is obvious – strong national language, uneven local change. 

Women’s Health Hubs Show What Better Care Can Look Like 

One of the report’s most useful contributions is its focus on women’s health hubs and community-based models of care. 

The Oxford case study shows what can happen when contraception, gynaecology, menopause management, and sexual health support are brought together in a single community setting. The report points to reduced referrals, faster access, improved patient experience, and a more efficient use of secondary care. 

The West Yorkshire case study is more mixed, and that honesty is important. Women’s Health Hubs are developing across parts of the region, but access is not yet consistent. Some localities have promising models in place. Others still have underdeveloped provision. 

That makes West Yorkshire a useful example of both the opportunity and the challenge. The model works where it exists, but it has not yet become the standard offer. 

The report’s conclusion highlights the blunt statement made by those who participated in the session – it is not fair to women to pilot the same ideas at infinitum. It is to implement them consistently. 

The Three Shifts Women’s Health Reform Needs 

The report frames women’s health reform through three shifts that mirror the wider direction of NHS policy as set out by the former Secretary of State’s three shifts: hospital to community, analogue to digital, and treatment to prevention. 

“The barrier is not innovation, it is implementation.” 

For women’s health, those shifts have a very practical meaning. 

Hospital to community means building services closer to where women live, reducing avoidable referrals, and giving women earlier support before conditions worsen. 

Analogue to digital means using technology to improve access, information, triage, and navigation, while recognising that digital tools must be inclusive and cannot replace trusted face to face care for those who need it. 

Treatment to prevention means helping women understand what is normal, when to seek help, and how to access support earlier across different life stages. 

This is where women’s health reform connects directly to the future of the NHS. If ministers want more care in the community, shorter waiting lists, and a stronger focus on prevention, women’s health should be one of the places where that agenda is delivered first. 

Trust Has to Be Treated as Infrastructure 

The report also makes a point that is too often treated as secondary: trust determines whether services work. 

Many women delay seeking help because symptoms have been normalised, dismissed, or poorly explained. Heavy bleeding, pain, incontinence, menopause symptoms, and postnatal issues are still too often accepted as something women simply have to live with. 

For some women, the barriers are even greater. Cultural stigma, language, low health literacy, digital exclusion, trauma, and previous poor experiences of care all affect whether someone feels able to seek support. 

That is why the report calls for dignity, informed consent, improved pain management, and trauma aware practice to be embedded across women’s health services. This should not sit in a side programme or a training module that staff complete once. It should shape how pathways are designed, how appointments are handled, how procedures are explained, and how women are listened to. 

The Reform Agenda Is Now Practical 

The report sets out a clear set of recommendations. 

The renewed life course model should become the organising framework for women’s health, from adolescence through reproductive years, maternity, menopause, and later life. 

Neighbourhood women’s health services and hubs should become the default model of care, supported by commissioning and payment reform. 

Single points of access should be implemented consistently for non-urgent gynaecology and women’s health referrals, with redesigned pathways for common conditions including heavy periods, menopause, and urogynaecology. 

Workforce development should cover gender bias, women’s pain, communication, informed consent, cultural competence, and trauma aware practice. 

National standards and transparent data should be used to reduce local variation, with patient reported experience measures and patient reported outcome measures built into key pathways. 

The report also calls for targeted outreach and inclusive digital tools, particularly for women facing the greatest barriers to care. 

From Report to Accountability 

The most important message in this report is that women’s health reform has not been short of evidence for several years. 

There are plenty of examples of better care. There are committed professionals, and community models that reduce pressure on hospitals and improve experience. There is a renewed national strategy that points in the right direction. 

As with many areas of the Government’s wider health strategy, the problem is implementation. 

Last year’s The Women’s Health Dividend showed why investing in women’s health makes sense for the economy. This new report shows what needs to change in the health system itself. 

The next test is whether women in different parts of the country start to see the same standard of care. A woman’s access to trusted, timely and joined up support should not depend on how services happen to be arranged locally. 

Women’s health has spent too long being squeezed between structures that were never designed around women’s lives. The report puts a clear challenge to government and the NHS: stop asking women to navigate fragmentation and start building services around them. 

“The time for incremental change is over.” 

Next Steps 

Reframing Women’s Health: From Fragmentation To System Reform has been distributed to women’s health leaders in Whitehall and across the NHS. UKHLSI looks forward to working with NHS leaders across the country to deliver the system change women so desperately need. 

To find out more about UK Healthcare and Life Sciences Innovation and the Women’s Health working group chaired by Paula Sherriff, please contact enquiries@ukhlsi.co.uk

At the heart of the strategy is a new accountability model, with plans to link women’s lived experience directly to provider funding. Under a proposed trial, patient feedback could determine whether services face financial consequences – a move designed to address long-standing concerns that women’s symptoms and pain have too often been dismissed.

Alongside this, a single referral pathway will be introduced to streamline access to care, supported by expanded digital services and community provision. The aim is to reduce delays in diagnosis and treatment, particularly for conditions such as endometriosis and fibroids, where waiting times remain significant.

Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting said: “We inherited a broken NHS…[that] too often gaslights women, treating their pain as an inconvenience and their symptoms as an overreaction…Women’s voices must be central to delivering effective, respectful and empathetic care.”

From Policy to Accountability

A main feature of the renewed strategy is the shift from policy ambition to system accountability.

For the first time, patient voice is being positioned as a mechanism for system leverage rather than mere traditional feedback – directly influencing how services are funded and improved. This marks a notable evolution in NHS reform, moving beyond traditional engagement models towards more tangible incentives for change.

As a longstanding advocate for this change, former Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, and Shadow Minister for Mental Health and Social Care, and Curia, Health, Care, and Life Sciences Research Group Advisory Board, Paula Sherriff said: “This is a welcome and necessary step forward. For too long, women’s experiences have been overlooked in the design of our health system. Embedding women’s voices into how care is delivered and funded is a significant shift, and one we have consistently called for.

“The challenge now is ensuring these commitments are matched by sustained investment and delivered at scale across the country.”

Commenting on the reset, Chief Executive of UKHLSI, Joanne Bekis said: “The renewed Women’s Health Strategy marks an important shift from ambition to accountability. By embedding women’s lived experience into funding decisions, prioritising integrated care pathways, and backing innovation in areas such as femtech and community-based delivery, the Government is acknowledging the systemic failures that have held women back for too long.

“The challenge now is delivery at scale – with sustained investment and clear outcomes – so that better women’s health becomes not only a clinical priority, but a driver of economic growth and workforce participation. An area that UKHLSI are able to support, provide advice, help develop and deliver.”

At the same time, the strategy explicitly acknowledges systemic failures within women’s healthcare, positioning reform as both a clinical and cultural reset.

NHS England’s Clinical Director for Women’s Health, Dr Sue Mann said: “Too many women are still dismissed for serious symptoms…The renewed women’s health strategy will build significantly on the work the NHS has been doing to ensure women are heard and get the specialist care they need.”

Integrated Care and Pathway Redesign

The move towards a single point of access and integrated care pathways reflects a broader shift away from fragmented services.

Clinical pathways for heavy menstrual bleeding, menopause, and urogynaecological conditions will be redesigned to improve speed and consistency of care. Community-based provision, supported by digital tools such as NHS Online and expanded diagnostic centres, is intended to reduce pressure on hospitals while improving access closer to home.

President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Dr Alison Wright said: “The refreshed Women’s Health Strategy marks an important renewal…There is a clear opportunity to embed Women’s Health Hubs within the neighbourhood health model.”

Innovation, Research and the Role of Femtech

The strategy also places greater emphasis on innovation and research, including a new £1.5 million Femtech Challenge Fund to accelerate the adoption of technologies that could transform women’s healthcare.

Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Chief Executive Officer of the NIHR, Professor Lucy Chappell said: “By tackling long-standing disparities…and making it easier for women to take part in clinical trials, we are ensuring that the research that we fund benefits all women in society.”

This focus reflects a growing recognition that addressing gaps in data, diagnostics, and treatment pathways is essential to improving outcomes at scale.

A Life-Course Approach to Women’s Health

The renewed strategy adopts a life-course approach, recognising that women’s health needs are interconnected and evolve over time.

Initiatives include:

• Improved menstrual health education.
• Expanded access to contraception and abortion services.
• Integration of menopause support into NHS Health Checks.
• Review of support for families experiencing baby loss.

Women’s Health Ambassador, Professor Dame Lesley Regan described the strategy as: “An opportunity to embed the voices of girls and women at the heart of the design and delivery of their healthcare…when we get it right for women, everyone benefits.”

Sector Response: Progress, but Delivery Will Define Success

Across the sector, the strategy has been broadly welcomed as a necessary and overdue intervention.

Chief Executive of Wellbeing of Women, Janet Lindsay said: “Real progress in women’s health is only possible through true collaboration… we are committed to working across the sector to ensure the refreshed strategy drives meaningful, long-term improvements.”

Chief Executive of Endometriosis UK, Emma Cox added: “Diagnosis times…are going up not down…Leadership and decisive actions will be vital to drive these times down.”

However, stakeholders have been clear that delivery, investment, and system capacity will ultimately determine whether the strategy achieves its ambitions.

Chief Executive of the British In Vitro Diagnostics Association (BIVDA), Helen Dent said:
“We are pleased that the government is making a clear commitment…but the key will be consistent implementation nationally. Without sustained and ring-fenced multiyear investment…the ability of providers to respond quickly, using the best diagnostics available in the community will be difficult. CDCs could deliver significant diagnostic testing for women, but current plans do not go far enough.”

Commenting on the strategy refresh, Former Minister of State for Health at the Department of Health and Social Care and Chair, Curia Health, Care, and Life Sciences Research Group Advisory Board, Rt Hon Andrew Stephenson CBE said: “Today’s announcement shows clear progress in recognising the structural challenges within women’s health. The focus on integrated care pathways and faster access is particularly encouraging.

“However, to fully unlock the economic and societal benefits outlined in Curia’s Women’s Health Dividend, we must go further – with long-term funding, clear delivery plans, and a stronger link to workforce participation and economic growth.”

Curia Analysis

The strategy reflects several priorities set out in Curia’s Women’s Health Dividend report:

1. Embedding women’s voices in system design
   • Curia called for co-production and accountability driven by lived experience.
   • The Government’s decision to link feedback to funding represents a direct and significant alignment.
2. Integrated, community-based care models
   • Curia emphasised the need for:
     • Women’s Health Hubs
     • Single-point triageNeighbourhood delivery models
     • The introduction of single referral pathways and community integration mirrors this approach.
3. Focus on high-impact conditions
   • Curia highlighted:
     • Heavy menstrual bleeding
     • Menopause
     • Contraception
   • Government reforms prioritise exactly these areas, particularly pathway redesign and waiting list reduction.
4. Innovation and adoption (including femtech)
   • Curia called for stronger innovation pathways and adoption frameworks.
   • The new Femtech Challenge Fund and digital services reflect this agenda.
5. Tackling inequalities and adopting a life-course approach
   • Curia’s report highlighted regional, socio-economic, and ethnic disparities and called for equitable access for all including minority ethnicities groups and BAME.
   • The strategy includes commitments to equity, education, and community provision.

Curia and UK Healthcare and Life Sciences Innovation (UKHLSI) members can read more about the strategy here (NB. Members will be sent a copy of the password).

Addressing Inequalities and Underrepresentation

The strategy explicitly acknowledges the role of inequality in shaping women’s health outcomes, particularly for marginalised communities.

Founding Chair, Caribbean & African Health Network (CAHN), Professor Faye Ruddock DL said: “The recognition of key women’s health concerns… alongside the focus on community voice, co-production, and culturally responsive care, reflects meaningful listening and genuine intent.”

Chief Executive of the British Heart Foundation, Dr Charmaine Griffiths added: “The outdated idea that heart disease is a ‘man’s disease’ has cost many women their health…Now we need sustained action right across the NHS.”

Expanding Access to Reproductive Health

Reproductive health remains a core focus of the strategy, with plans to expand access to contraception and improve service delivery across communities.

President of the College of Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare, Dr Zara Haider said: “We’re really pleased to see women’s sexual and reproductive health placed firmly at the centre…If neighbourhood health centres can replicate the success demonstrated by Women’s Health Hubs, this would be a major step forward.”

Final Thought: Direction Set – Delivery Now Critical

The renewed Women’s Health Strategy represents a positive step forward in recognising and addressing systemic failures in women’s healthcare. Its focus on accountability, integrated care, and patient voice aligns with a growing consensus across policy and industry.

However, as stakeholders across the system have highlighted, the strategy stops short of the scale of investment, delivery clarity, and economic framing required to fully transform outcomes.

The direction is now set and as Curia has highlighted for over many years, the challenge ahead is ensuring that ambition is matched by implementation, capacity, and sustained commitment – so that women across the country see tangible improvements in how care is accessed, experienced, and delivered.

Get Involved: Find Out More

Curia has been commissioned by UK Healthcare and Life Sciences Innovation (UKHLSI) in 2026 to look at enhancing women’s health commissioning pathways. Outcomes from first of the strategic innovation gateways and sprint sessions with West Yorkshire NHS Health and Care Partnership will be published shortly.

If you would like to find out more about this work, or others, please contact Partnerships Director at UKHLSI, Ben M^cDermott at bmcdermott@ukhlsi.co.uk.  

Paula Sherriff

Former MP and Founder of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Women’s Health
Advisor to Curia’s Health, Care, and Life Sciences Research Group

Following a recent Curia women’s health panel with system leaders and Parliamentarians, Paula Sherriff writes exclusively for Politics UK. Women’s health is no longer a side issue – it is shaping workforce participation, NHS capacity and economic resilience, and the cost of inaction is already being paid.

For too long, women’s health has been treated as a niche issue – something to be addressed when time, budgets and political attention allow. That approach is no longer sustainable. Women’s health is economic policy, public service reform and social justice rolled into one, and the cost of continued inaction is already being felt across the workforce, the NHS and local communities.

At Curia’s recent panel discussion, which brought together parliamentarians, clinicians, researchers, digital innovators and campaigners, there was striking consensus. We are not short of evidence. We are not short of ideas. What we are short of is delivery, accountability and the political will to treat women’s health as a core priority rather than an optional extra.

Women’s Health as Economic Infrastructure

This matters because the economic consequences are now impossible to ignore. Women aged 45 to 64 are the fastest growing segment of the UK workforce. Yet thousands are leaving work or reducing hours due to unmanaged menopause symptoms, untreated gynaecological conditions and years long waits for specialist care. That represents lost productivity for employers, reduced tax revenue for the Exchequer and increased pressure on already stretched public services.

When women cannot access timely, effective care, the impact ripples far beyond individual health. It affects family income, workplace retention, caring responsibilities and community resilience. This is not a women’s issue in isolation. It is a structural failure with national consequences.

From Fragmentation to Delivery: Fixing a System Built Around Services, Not Lives

One of the most persistent problems is fragmentation. Women’s health services are still organised around systems rather than lives. Sexual and reproductive health, general practice and gynaecology are commissioned separately, creating artificial barriers to joined up care. Clinicians described having the skills and capacity to help women quickly but being prevented from doing so by commissioning rules that make no clinical sense.

The result is duplication, delay and frustration. Women are bounced between services, conditions worsen unnecessarily and inequalities widen, particularly for those already facing barriers due to income, language or geography. This is not inefficiency by accident. It is inefficiency by design.

There are clear solutions. Women’s health hubs are one of the most promising. Where implemented properly, they bring together multidisciplinary expertise in community settings, offering a single front door for menstrual health, contraception, menopause support, cervical screening and gynaecology triage. Evidence shows they reduce waiting lists and improve patient experience, yet access remains uneven and dependent on postcode.

That patchiness is itself an inequality. As long as access depends on where a woman lives, too many will continue to put up with symptoms they should never have been expected to tolerate. Scaling women’s health hubs should be a national priority, not a local experiment reliant on short term funding or individual champions.

Digital tools also have a role to play, but only if they are treated as enablers of care rather than add ons. Well designed, evidence based digital support can reduce pressure on frontline staff and improve access for women who struggle to navigate traditional pathways. But fragmented procurement and short-term commissioning mean digital innovation is too often bolted on, then quietly dropped.

If women’s health is genuinely a priority, digital tools must be embedded into core pathways, funded sustainably and designed around real needs, not novelty or procurement convenience.

Research and economic data matter too, but evidence without implementation changes nothing. Women remain under represented in clinical trials, and conditions such as endometriosis, heavy menstrual bleeding and menopause continue to be under researched and under diagnosed. Meanwhile, stark inequalities persist in maternal outcomes, with Black women significantly more likely to die during pregnancy or shortly afterwards.

None of this is inevitable. These outcomes reflect choices about what we fund, what we measure and who we listen to. For years, women’s pain was dismissed, trivialised or normalised. Changing that has required women to speak openly and persistently about their experiences, often at personal cost. Lived experience has driven progress where policy alone did not.

But storytelling is not enough on its own. We now need leadership that turns evidence into action and pilots into policy. That means clear national direction on women’s health hubs, commissioning reform that enables joined up care, and accountability mechanisms that make women’s health outcomes visible and measurable.

For Curia’s Health, Care, and Life Sciences Research Group, the economic opportunity is clear. The task now is to help move the debate from agreement to implementation – to bring together policymakers, clinicians, industry and the third sector around delivery models that work at scale, not just in pockets.

The cost of inaction is already being paid – by women forced out of work, by an NHS dealing with avoidable complexity, and by an economy missing out on talent, productivity and potential. The question is no longer whether we can afford to prioritise women’s health. It is whether we can afford not to.

We know the problems. We know what works. What remains is the choice to do things differently.

For decades, women’s health has been sidelined in policymaking – fragmented across services, under researched and too often dismissed as an individual problem rather than a systemic one.

At a recent Curia panel bringing together parliamentarians, clinicians, researchers, digital innovators and campaigners, the message was unmistakable: women’s health sits at the heart of economic resilience, public service reform, and social justice.

As Paula Sherriff, former MP and founder of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Women’s Health, put it in opening remarks, the challenge is no longer about awareness.

“We know the problems. We know what works. What we need now is delivery – and the political will to make women’s health a core priority rather than an optional extra.”

With women aged 45 to 64 now the fastest growing segment of the UK workforce, the consequences of poor access to care are being felt well beyond individual wellbeing. Workforce exits linked to menopause, long gynaecology waiting lists and unmet reproductive health needs are reducing productivity, increasing pressure on the NHS, and widening inequalities across communities.

Women’s health and the economy: an invisible link

Despite being half the population, women’s health conditions are still routinely treated as marginal. Former Minister of State for Women and Equalities, Dame Anneliese Dodds MP reflected on how recently many issues were simply absent from parliamentary debate.

“There were decades where women’s health was never discussed at all. Even when it was mentioned, it was often trivialised or treated as embarrassing.”

That has begun to change, she argued, with greater recognition of menopause in the workplace, urinary tract infections as a patient safety issue and the need to modernise reproductive health services. But progress remains uneven and vulnerable to political drift.

“Let’s stop saying ‘it’s just’. Normalising women’s pain has normalised failure in the system.” 

Rt Hon Dame Anneliese Dodds MP

“What has made the biggest difference has been women telling their stories. The facts matter, but lived experience is what cuts through.”

Dodds urged women not to underestimate the impact of their own voices – locally, professionally, and politically – and warned against normalising poor health.

“Let’s stop saying ‘it’s just’. It’s not just pain, not just heavy bleeding, not just something to endure. It affects women’s ability to work, care, study and participate fully in society.”

Fragmented systems, fragmented care

If awareness has improved, delivery remains hampered by how services are organised. President of the College of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, Dr Zahra Haider described a commissioning landscape that actively blocks joined up care.

Sexual and reproductive health services, general practice, and gynaecology are often funded and managed separately, leaving women bounced between services even when the clinical expertise already exists.

“I can have the staff, the skills and the capacity to help a woman the same day – but I am not allowed to because of how services are commissioned.”

The result is long waits, unnecessary referrals and widening inequalities, particularly for women from marginalised backgrounds who find complex systems hardest to navigate.

Dr Haider highlighted post pregnancy contraception as a clear example of missed opportunity. Access after birth, pregnancy loss or termination is patchy despite strong evidence that planned pregnancies improve outcomes for both women and babies.

“This is compassionate care that also makes economic sense. But too often it only happens because clinicians find workarounds rather than because the system supports it.”

Women’s health hubs: making care fit around women

Across the panel, women’s health hubs emerged as a practical way to overcome fragmentation. By bringing together multidisciplinary expertise in community settings, hubs can offer menstrual care, contraception, menopause support, cervical screening, and gynaecology triage through a single front door.

Where they are well established, hubs have reduced gynaecology waiting lists and improved patient experience. But access remains inconsistent, with provision varying sharply by geography.

“Services need to fit around women – not force women to fit around services.”

Susan Murray MP, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Scotland

MP for Mid Dunbartonshire and Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Scotland, Susan Murray argued that this patchiness is itself a driver of inequality.

“As long as access depends on where you live, women will keep putting up with symptoms they should not have to tolerate.”

She also stressed the importance of physical space – health and care centres that can host specialist nurses, community organisations, and peer support without prohibitive costs.

“These hubs are not just about medicine. They are about dignity, access and making services usable in real life.”

Digital tools as enablers, not add ons

Digital innovation was another recurring theme, with Co-Founder of Essential Parent, Diana Hill cautioning against assuming all technology is equally helpful.

“Digital support works when it is designed around real needs – not when it is a novelty.”

Essential Parent’s work with NHS trusts, integrated care boards and local authorities shows how multilingual, evidence based digital tools can reduce pressure on frontline staff while improving access for families who might otherwise be excluded.

Hill emphasised the importance of accessibility – including visual content for people with low literacy – and local tailoring so that information reflects real services and pathways.

However, she warned that fragmented procurement and short-term funding make it harder to embed digital support into mainstream care.

“If women’s health is a priority, digital tools should be commissioned as part of core pathways, not treated as optional extras.”

Diana Hill, Co-Founder, Essential Parent

Closing the gender health gap

For Janet Lindsay, Chief Executive of Wellbeing of Women, the urgency lies in addressing a gender health gap that has been allowed to persist for generations.

“Women live longer than men but spend significantly more of their lives in poor health. That should concern anyone serious about prevention, productivity, and equality.”

Conditions such as endometriosis, heavy menstrual bleeding and menopause symptoms remain under recognised, while women report being dismissed when seeking help. Education, Lindsay argued, must start earlier – in schools, workplaces, and communities – so that symptoms are recognised and acted on sooner.

Waiting lists for gynaecology services continue to stretch into years, compounding harm, and frustration.

“By the time many women reach specialist care, their condition has worsened unnecessarily. That is a system failure, not a personal one.”

She also highlighted the role of charities and community organisations in reaching women who face additional barriers, from language to stigma.

From research to real world change

Vice President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Professor Asma Khalil focused on the gap between research evidence and everyday care.

“Evidence without implementation does not change lives.” 

Professor Asma Khalil, Vice President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

Recent work engaging women directly on research priorities revealed a strong emphasis on access, inclusion, and long-term wellbeing rather than narrow clinical categories.

“We need research that reflects real lives – and systems that actually use that evidence.”

Khalil warned that women remain under represented in clinical trials, leading to poorer understanding of how treatments affect them. She also highlighted stark inequalities in maternal outcomes, with Black women significantly more likely to die during pregnancy or shortly afterwards.

“No single profession can fix this alone. It requires co-ordinated action across policy, public health, and clinical care.”

A political choice

Throughout the evening, speakers returned to a shared conclusion: women’s health outcomes are not inevitable. They are shaped by political choices about funding, commissioning, accountability, and leadership.

Increasing women’s representation in elected office matters, not because women are a single bloc, but because lived experience shapes priorities. As Dodds observed, many of the advances to date have been driven by women prepared to speak openly and persistently.

“Raise your voice. Tell your story. Keep pushing. Change has happened before, and it can happen again.” 

Rt Hon Dame Anneliese Dodds MP

As Paula Sherriff closed the discussion, she offered a final challenge.

“The cost of inaction is already being paid – by women, by the NHS and by the economy. The question is whether we finally choose to do something different.”

Theo Clarke

Former MP and Chair Birth Trauma Inquiry

Theo Clarke is the former MP for Stafford and chaired the cross-party Birth Trauma Inquiry in Parliament in 2024. She is the author of Breaking the Taboo: Why We Need to Talk About Birth Trauma and hosts a popular related podcast on women’s health.

The National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation (NMNI), led by Baroness Amos, published its interim findings yesterday.

It said nothing we did not already know and only reinforced how much work there is to do to improve care for new mothers in this country.

Baroness Amos said that nothing had prepared her for the unacceptable care families currently receive. It is therefore deeply disappointing that these interim findings have been published instead of a full rapid report with concrete recommendations to tackle the national maternity scandal – a scandal that is harming women and babies and leading to unnecessary deaths right now. That full rapid report is what the Health Secretary promised in June, with a report due this December.

The failure of the Government’s so-called rapid inquiry – now due in the spring – continues to highlight the bluster and prevarication it has employed about maternity care since being elected. They have done nothing in 17 months. Wes Streeting says it keeps him up at night. Well, he must be getting used to insomnia.

The fact is that this not-so-rapid inquiry has simply kicked the can further down the road, while frustrated maternity campaigners like me look on in disbelief.

It will require a Herculean effort by the Baroness and her team to finish by spring. But what is most frustrating is that all the information the Health Secretary needs is already available – ready and waiting to be used, as Baroness Amos herself concedes.

In her reflections, she said:

“The NHS has recorded a staggering 748 recommendations relating to maternity and neonatal care, the majority of which have been made since 2015 via damning reports…This naturally raises an important question: with so many thorough and far-reaching reviews already completed, why are we in England still struggling to provide safe, reliable maternity and neonatal care everywhere in the country?”

It is a good point. However, what is alarming is that she and the Health Secretary appear to believe that yet another report, with yet more recommendations to be published who knows when, is going to make the difference and finally end the struggle for acceptable maternity care.

I find it impossible to believe this inquiry will reach any different conclusions from those of the many others going back a decade, including my own cross-party parliamentary inquiry into birth trauma in 2024.

Two of its key recommendations were to appoint a Maternity Commissioner for England and to implement a National Maternity Improvement Strategy. This person would not simply report and then move on to the next job, but work over years to implement those 748 recommendations, improve care and save lives – and not kick any cans down the road for even an extra day.

As I have said since the inquiry was announced, we already have all the information we need to stop this scandal – not in 2026 or at some undefined point in the future, but right now. What Donna Ockenden found at Shrewsbury and Telford, what other reports into maternity services have shown, and what my own inquiry co-chaired with Rosie Duffield demonstrated are all too common and tragic failures in NHS care. They speak of a systemic failure to follow guidelines, poor technical competence, dismissive and uncaring attitudes, and cover-ups. They speak of cultural and structural dysfunction: severe understaffing; misogynistic and dysfunctional hierarchical care models; and persistently poorer outcomes for Black, Asian and disadvantaged mothers that are costing lives.

Simply acting on the recommendations of our birth trauma inquiry report would be a huge step forward. Set our work alongside the abundant evidence we already have of terrible tragedies across the country and it is clear: we do not need another report – we need to get on with saving lives and preventing harm.

I am afraid we do not need another investigation from this Government. We need a Maternity Commissioner to implement the findings of existing inquiries, which already set out very clearly what change needs to happen in order to improve maternity safety now.

Breaking the Taboo: Why we need to talk about birth trauma is available at Biteback Publishing: www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/breaking-the-taboo

Ask Her to Stand Day

50:50 Parliament celebrated their annual ‘Ask Her To Stand’ event on 18th November in the House of Commons. The 50:50 Parliament movement serves women who are looking to get involved with local or national politics, offering tailored support to get women into positions of authority.

The ‘Ask Her To Stand’ event brought together a panel of cross-party MPs and other feminist voices to discuss equal representation in Parliament and why it matters. With a roster of speakers including Stella Creasy MP, Helen Maguire MP, Mims Davies MP and Melissa Keveren (founder of Girls Who Talk Politics), the evening was lively and optimistic, packed with powerful speeches advocating women’s involvement in politics.

The event formed part of the lead-up to Ask Her to Stand Day, held annually on 21 November to commemorate the passing of the Qualification of Women Act 1918. The groundbreaking legislation first allowed women over 21 to stand for election. Each year, the event – a powerful reminder of how far women’s rights has progressed in the UK – sees leaders from the political sphere and community come together to support the campaign. Because of this, Ask Her to Stand Day is also a crucial reminder of how much work needs to be done to achieve equity in parliament.

The work of 50:50 Parliament

Ultimately, the 50:50 Parliament movement has encouraged more than 3,000 women to sign up through the campaign’s Sign Up to Stand initiative. During the 2024 General Election, 101 women from the community stood to be elected, with 25 winning their constituency seats; and 9,000 members support the charity, with online membership figures reaching 30,000.

During the event, the audience heard from a range of campaigners, 50:50 Parliament ambassadors and spokespeople. 50:50 Parliament CEO Lyanne Nicholl celebrated the success of the movement thus far: “there are a lot of people talking about this”. But she was also keen to emphasise what still needs to happen: that an increased “level of education among the electorate will be crucial for progress”.

Mims Davies: advice to women in politics

Mims Davies MP followed up on her words, insisting that “it is incumbent on all of us to be honest about how resilient we need to be”. She described the peril of reticence on the part of women afraid to push themselves into roles of responsibility – “the most dangerous thing facing us”. More women, she argued, are “saying they don’t want to come forward”; this is something we need to “acknowledge: because that is how progress can come about”.

Mims Davies MP provided advice to women during the early days of their involvement in politics, aiming her words at prospective elective candidates getting used to life in Parliament. The first of her two key tips involved “getting lost!”. She explained that “looking and learning”, exploring your surroundings once you have built up a rhythm and “got into the flow”, will best equip you to achieve, knowing the facilities and connections you have on offer.

Her second piece of wisdom involved engagement in “cross party conversations”. Talking to a diverse range of politicians and case-workers of vastly different backgrounds will provide you with the collaborative discussions so vital for politics – broadening your perspectives, building your network and enriching your political and personal experience.

A “Jurassic” current political climate

“Not only should we be asking her to stand, but we need to ask him to stand aside” ~ Stella Creasy MP.

Stella Creasy MP agreed, with a powerful indictment of the current order: “not only should we be asking her to stand, but we need to ask him to stand aside”. She insisted that “too often we’re being judged by an out-of-date conception of what a politician should look like”. Creasy went on to describe the status quo in Parliament as “jurassic” – women are forced to fight against an atavistic model which is stuck in binary, inflexible modes of thinking about gender and power.

Shakira Akabusi: “Everyone has to start somewhere”

50:50 Parliament ambassador Shakira Akabusi compared women’s fight for political visibility to running: “regardless of speed, stamina and strength, you are a runner: everyone has to start somewhere”. She insisted that Ask Her to Stand “isn’t just for women who are already knowledgeable about politics; it is for every single woman who believes that her voice matters”. Akabusi also drew attention to the damning statistics – that last year’s historic high of 40.5 per cent of female MPs is already waning: “we can not let that momentum slide”.

Hope for continued progress

Ultimately the evening concluded on a positive note, but the abiding message still presents a challenge. With the numbers of women involved in politics dropping, everyone needs to work on creating an environment which nurtures female political talent, instead of intimidating, bullying or harassing them out of positions of responsibility.

In a culture where 2 in 3 young women have experienced sexual harassment, bullying or verbal abuse at work, partly because managers and companies are under increasing levels of pressure, it is no surprise that they are increasingly reluctant to propel themselves forward into positions of responsibility. The work of 50:50 Parliament aims to work with compassion for accessibility, and the Ask Her to Stand event was a hopeful harbinger of change yet to come.

This article has been sponsored by Bayer (full declaration of Bayer’s sponsorship can be found at the end of this article).

Improving women’s health is not only a moral or clinical imperative, it is an economic growth strategy. Looking at the recent publication of Curia’s latest report, The Women’s Health Dividend: The Economic Case for Action in the UK, the data are now irrefutable. Targeted investment in women’s health yields a benefit-cost ratio of 2.52:1, generating a net economic benefit of £4.47 million across the illustrative interventions modelled. For every £1 spent, the UK gains £2.52 in discounted benefits through higher productivity, lower NHS demand, and stronger labour-market participation.[1]

The findings could not be timelier. As the Chancellor looks for credible routes to expand labour supply and boost productivity ahead of the 2025 Budget, the evidence points squarely to women’s health as a major, underused lever for growth.

Women’s Health Hubs: the Local Engine of Change

Chaired by former Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities Paula Sherriff, Curia’s inquiry heard from clinicians, data scientists, and digital providers across the country. Its most persuasive case study came from a mature Women’s Health Hub model[2] – where leadership is shared between sexual and reproductive health, gynaecology, and general practice.

These hubs route women to the right clinician the first time, cutting waiting lists and keeping more activity in the community. They also enable rapid onward referral to secondary care when necessary, reducing unnecessary procedures and hospital pressures.

Yet, replication is inconsistent. Administrative frictions – incompatible data systems, payroll silos, and split commissioning – stall progress. The report calls for a standardised national hub specification, mandatory tri-leadership, and quarterly ICB dashboards reporting waits, access, and equity. The logic is clear: where governance is aligned, hubs flourish; where it is not, inequality deepens.

The Cost of Inaction and the Dividend of Reform

The report’s economic modelling quantifies what inaction costs the UK each year:

• £11 billion in lost work and healthcare from gynaecological and menstrual conditions[3],
• £1.5 billion from menopause-related workforce exits[4]
• £193 million in direct NHS costs from unplanned pregnancies[5]

Together, these represent an enormous, preventable drag on growth.

By contrast, practical interventions – menopause workplace support, pharmacy contraception services, long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), and early treatment for heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB) – offer exceptional returns. Menopause workplace support alone delivers a 10.4:1 benefit-cost ratio, largely through retention and reduced absence.

Crucially, the Inquiry adds a missing dimension: equity-weighted returns. Hyper-local analysis shows “HRT deserts” and unexpected patterns of unplanned pregnancy concentrated in deprived communities. Targeting investment by place – not national average – delivers greater marginal gains and narrows inequalities that blunt the wider economic impact.

Digital Inclusion as Core Infrastructure

Digital exclusion remains a hidden determinant of inequality. Commissioned, multilingual digital tools – such as the Essential Parent[6] model cited in the Inquiry – make evidence-based guidance available in more than 100 languages, covering contraception, menopause, heavy menstrual bleeding, and domestic abuse.

Evaluations show workflow savings worth tens of thousands of pounds per borough and a four-to-one return on investment, even before factoring in behavioural benefits.[7] For commissioners, the message is simple: digital inclusion pays for itself and should be written into every hub specification as standard, not as an optional extra.

Policy Priorities for Treasury and the NHS

The new report outlines an achievable policy roadmap:

1. Restore and standardise Women’s Health Hubs
   – Tri-leadership across sexual health, gynaecology, and general practice
   – One front door, multidisciplinary team, and real-time triage linked to elective recovery
2. Guarantee 48-hour access to effective contraception
   – Expand the Pharmacy Contraception Service and fast-track LARC fittings through hubs
3. Mandate menopause action plans in workplaces
   – Apply in the public sector and incentivise adoption across large employers, particularly in areas with low HRT access
4. Commission multilingual digital support
   – Integrate proven inclusion tools into Women’s Health Hubs and family-hub networks
5. Build a national accountability loop
   – Task the ONS and NHS England to co-publish a women’s-health-and-productivity dashboard tracking access, equity, and labour-market impact

These are not abstract reforms but immediate steps that align with Treasury priorities on growth and fiscal sustainability.

Why Women’s Health Is an Economic Imperative

Women make up just over half the workforce, and midlife women are its fastest-growing segment. Poor access to contraception, untreated heavy bleeding, and unmanaged menopause symptoms drive absence, presenteeism, and premature workforce exits – outcomes that depress productivity and tax revenues alike.

Conversely, timely intervention keeps experienced women in work, sustaining income, pensions, and economic output. Better women’s health also reduces public spending on acute care, social security, and emergency services.

As the Curia report notes, “Strategic investment in women’s health is one of the highest-return opportunities available to government – advancing growth, fiscal sustainability, and fairness at once.”

This conclusion has wide backing across the policy community, including support from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, and local system leaders now delivering hub models in Liverpool, Tower Hamlets, and Birmingham.

Final Thought: Capturing the Dividend

Women’s-health policy has long oscillated between slogans and siloed debates. The combined evidence from the Curia Inquiry and The Women’s Health Dividend report cuts through that noise.

We now have the numbers, the models, and the roadmap. The question is no longer whether women’s health drives growth, but whether policymakers will treat it as the economic infrastructure it is.

If government, employers, and ICBs act together – standardising hubs, funding access, and measuring what matters – the UK can convert one of its largest untapped social challenges into a source of national renewal.

This article has been developed by Chamber UK and funded through a sponsorship agreement by Bayer Public Limited Company which has supported the logistics and materials for this webinar/report. Bayer has had no editorial control over the final content of the material but have provided data to Chamber UK, for their consideration, to support with the development of this material and medicolegally reviewed the document for compliance in accordance to the ABPI Code of Practice. Chamber UK have maintained complete editorial control for the reports and outputs.

PP-PF-WHC-GB-1763

October 2025

[1] Request access to full report: The Women’s Health Dividend: the Economic Case for Action in the UK www.chamberuk.com/publications

[2] Request access to full report: The Women’s Health Dividend: the Economic Case for Action in the UK www.chamberuk.com/publications

[3] Request access to full report: The Women’s Health Dividend: the Economic Case for Action in the UK www.chamberuk.com/publications

[4] Request access to full report: The Women’s Health Dividend: the Economic Case for Action in the UK www.chamberuk.com/publications

[5] Request access to full report: The Women’s Health Dividend: the Economic Case for Action in the UK www.chamberuk.com/publications

[6] https://essentialparent.com/

[7] Request access to full report: The Women’s Health Dividend: the Economic Case for Action in the UK www.chamberuk.com/publications

Ruth Jones’s Early Career

Ruth Jones is a rare figure in politics, having opened her career not in policy or business, but in public health; she was a physiotherapist for 32 years before becoming a trade union full time officer. But, as she explained, this is not as great a discrepancy as it may at first seem: “in both roles, you’re advocating for people; you’re representing patients or clients or staff”.

She repeatedly draws on her NHS experience during the webinar, testament to the fundamental, formative training she garnered from her work: although not centred in public policy, clearly of invaluable worth for human skills, team leadership and unified values.

She explained that “as a member of staff, I was always part of a team”; regardless of status or role, as a manager of a team of 50, she “could never have done that job without the cooperation of the team” – a constantly evolving and diverse team of “admin, support workers, cleaners, porters”. Her work gave her a deep understanding of the “spirit of teamwork”: “everybody had to work together to make sure we got the best for the patient or the client that we were working with”.

“Health is a massive issue. The NHS is a national health service, but at the moment it seems to be a national sick service” ~ Ruth Jones MP

Ruth Jones’ entry into politics

Frustrated by her limited power to affect real, tangible change during her time as a trade union officer, Jones swiftly learnt that “you need to get higher up the food chain to actually make a difference”. From campaigning in unwinnable seats to winning her home seat in 2019, Jones’ political career saw her return to her homeland, having lived in her victorious constituency for most of her life, and having been a Labour member for over 20 years.

Ruth Jones’ loyalty to, and firm sense of, the importance of Welsh identity spans back to her political inspirations. She cited Nye Bevan and Neil Kinnock – “brilliant orators, passionate, powerful and really strong advocates for their local community”. She endeavours, through her roles as constituency MP and Welsh Select Committee chair, to emulate their sincerity; to serve as a “passionate representative of her patch”.

‘Nye Bevan and Neil Kinnock were brilliant orators, passionate, powerful and really strong advocates for their local community’ ~ Ruth Jones MP

Welsh Affairs Committee Operations

As Chair of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, Ruth Jones outlined the Committee’s cross-party remit to examine how Westminster policy affects Wales and to scrutinise the UK Government’s engagement with devolved institutions.

“We work together – Labour, Plaid Cymru, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats – to get the best outcomes for Wales“, she explained, highlighting the difference between a Select Committee’s modelling on collaboration and balance, and the often adversarial nature of Prime Minister’s Questions.

The Committee focuses on issues effecting people in Wales, specifically retained powers such as justice, immigration, and defense. Its current inquiries include prisons, probation and rehabilitation; the economic regeneration of coalfields and the steel industry; and the impact of trade and inheritance tax on Welsh farmers. The Committee questions the Secretary of State for Wales twice a year and invites the First Minister from the Senedd, a partnership crucial for avoiding overlap and ensuring comprehensive coverage of issues, particularly regarding devolved powers like health and education.

Cross-Border Health and Social Care

Upon Fatima Kamara’s questioning on the most important areas of healthcare reform facing the UK Government, Jones’ response was immediately impassioned: “Health is a massive issue. The NHS is a national health service, but at the moment it seems to be a national sick service”. She insisted that Government should be looking at “far more” preventative health promotion and ill health prevention in order for “people to live long, happy and healthy lives”: “it’s no good living to the age of 90 if you’re bedbound for 10 years”.

Another crucial point made, and one clearly influenced by Jones’ career in healthcare, was that the UK needs “to have a long term view on health”. She referred to the Smoking White Paper of the 1970s to 1990s which linked cancer to nicotine – but highlighted that it “didn’t actually show results for 30 years because people were still smoking”, resulting in no decrease in cancers for 20 years. Healthcare developments, she insisted, happen far outside the parliamentary terms, which is why they prove so challenging to push through – but are all the more vital for their comparative ostensible lack of urgency, when pitted against more short-term solvable issues.

Ruth Jones praised the teamwork that underpins the NHS at every level and urged closer integration between hospitals, community care, and local authorities to reduce pressure on services. However, she feels, health and social care systems must increasingly operate together if hospital backlogs and patient flow are going to be better handled.

With heightened focus on Wales, Jones expressed how the country faces the challenges of an older, sicker population and the emigration of younger generations, leading to a shortage of care staff. She explained how “we need young people, at the very basic level to look after our older people”.

Although the Welsh Government has legislated Wales as a country of sanctuary, welcoming skilled immigrants to fill vacancies, particularly in the NHS, delays in processing legislative papers for refugees and asylum seekers prevent them from working. Such issues exacerbate staffing shortages and negatively impact both their and patients’ well-being.

“We need young people, at the very basic level to look after our older people” ~ Ruth Jones MP

Skills, Migration and the Welsh Workforce

Ruth Jones’ positive, welcoming stance on immigration is clear, albeit, self-admittedly, “going against the rhetoric that’s out there in terms of England in quite a strong way”. Jones describes how her mother, recently in hospital, was treated by a “brilliant” network of staff whose “vast majority were from overseas”: “they were non-white, from overseas, and they were absolutely superb”.

“Well, I’m not being funny, you’ve been retired 20 years. They’re not taking your job, they are filling a vacancy which is not your job and they don’t want your job because to be honest, they’re very highly qualified as a lawyer, a barrister, whatever. They want to come in and give to the country that has taken them in’’ ~ Ruth Jones MP

Jones expressed her frustration, empathising with foreign workers who struggle to attain their right to remain and legislative papers dealt with – “during that time, you’re not working, you’re existing on a pittance, you’re dealing with your family, you’ve got nothing. It’s bad for your mental health, it’s bad for your physical health, it’s bad for your family”.

She emphasised how the Government should prioritise getting such people into work: we can do that, “it’s not that difficult” – but political, social pressures and red-tape are debarring Labour from swifter action.

“We need to ensure that working people have hope, because you can have all the stability and all the talk about growth, but if you haven’t got hope, then people just do lose heart” ~ Ruth Jones MP

On the sorts of arguments espoused by right wing spokespeople such as Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage, she is scathing and blunt: “somebody said, in my constituency, “oh, they’re coming, they’re taking my job”. And I said, “Well, I’m not being funny, you’ve been retired 20 years. They’re not taking your job, they are filling a vacancy which is not your job and they don’t want your job because to be honest, they’re very highly qualified as a lawyer, a barrister, whatever. They want to come in and give to the country that has taken them in””.

Jones wants to dismantle the “right wing rhetoric which says they’re freeloaders, they’re coming in to get the benefit”. They don’t want the benefit, she argues; “they want to give back”. She describes the result of proper integration as a powerful tool for enhancing the community: they become a family, paying taxes, being involved in the community: “So do you know what? I think we should welcome them with open arms”.

‘I think we should welcome them with open arms’ ~ Ruth Jones MP

Energy Transition and Economic Growth in Wales

Ruth Jones emphasises how Wales is well-positioned to capitalize on natural energy resources due to its geography: “we’ve got wind, we’ve got solar and we’ve also got tidal”. She expressed her keenness to establish a reliable and secure energy system independent of external geopolitical influences.

Jones also set out the key challenges for renewable energy in Wales, which will increasingly include connecting renewable sources to the national electricity grid, especially in mid-Wales, and developing battery storage solutions to capture and release energy as needed.

She celebrated Newport’s innovative clean energy transformation: a city boasting the largest semiconductor cluster in the UK, as well as multiple data centers, which are power-hungry and require robust renewable energy infrastructure.

Future Priorities

Ruth Jones explained the Government’s heavy emphasis on ‘growth and stability’, but has a more human message to deliver: ‘But what we do need to do is ensure that working people have hope, because you can have all the stability and all the talk about growth, but if you haven’t got hope, then people just do lose heart’.

She continued, expanding on the Government’s focus on apprenticeships, training and increased employment levels: ‘Jobs, jobs, jobs, yes, of course, but not just jobs at any cost. We want decent jobs which are well paid’.

And permanence: Jones believes in creating jobs for good, and for the long term – jobs still existent for the next half century – also something that she feels will prove crucial for communities.

‘Jobs, jobs, jobs, yes, of course, but not just jobs at any cost. We want decent jobs which are well paid’ ~ Ruth Jones MP

Ruth Jones’ overarching values rest on a celebration of both small-scale community togetherness, and cooperation on a national level; in short, unity. It is a value which has guided her from before her political journey even began, when she became aware of the power of a healthy and supportive hospital team. And it is a value which, in today’s climate of social entropy, is more apt than ever.

Ruth Jones’ words on immigration were refreshingly honest; Labour continue to remain circumspect about their rhetoric on the issue given the UK’s immense public backlash, but Jones’ support of an ‘open-armed welcome’ is a bold gambit, promising and hoping for deeper community integration for both Brits, and people from around the world.