Debate contribution: Women’s Health Strategy

Debate contribution by Ms Claire Sugden on 16 March 2026.

MLA

Ms Claire Sugden

Party at the time

Independent

Date

16 March 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Women’s Health Strategy

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5449042

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. Women's health is often spoken about as if it were a series of separate issues that arise at different points in a woman's life: menstrual health in adolescence; contraception in early adulthood; pregnancy and childbirth for those who choose to have children; menopause in mid-life; and the challenges of ageing later. The reality is that women's health does not work like that. It is not a series of isolated episodes; it is a continuous journey. The information that women are given or not given, the symptoms that are dismissed or left undiagnosed and the services that they are unable to access will shape their health outcomes decades later.

That is the central reason why I have proposed the motion in the Assembly today: women's health requires a life-course approach. It requires us to think ahead, to join the dots between the different stages of life and to recognise that the health needs of half our population cannot be addressed through fragmented services. In reality, the individual services struggle to meet the needs of women. Even where services exist, they are often not accessible when women need them. We see that most clearly in the extraordinary wait times for gynaecology services in Northern Ireland. Women wait years for assessment and treatment for conditions that significantly affect their daily lives, their physical health and their ability to work and care for their families. I recently spoke to a woman who, by the time that her gynaecology appointment came up, no longer needed it, yet she was advised to keep it on the basis that the waiting list was so long that she might need it years later. That tells us something about the reality of access to care in Northern Ireland today. We see similar pressures in other areas of women's health. Osteoporosis services, for example, provide excellent clinical care but struggle to keep up with the scale of demand. Too often, osteoporosis is identified only after an older woman experiences a serious fall and presents at hospital with a fracture. Anyone who has spent time in an emergency department (ED) will recognise how frequently older women appear in the waiting rooms following falls that might ultimately be linked to weakened bone health. That is not simply a clinical issue; it is a systemic issue. Better prevention, early identification and a more coordinated approach to women's health could reduce suffering for those women and pressure on our health service at the same time. That raises a wider point about prevention and public health. Bone health and muscle strength decline as we age, particularly in women. Strength and resistance training are widely recognised as one of the most effective ways of reducing the risk of osteoporosis and falls later in life, yet much of the conversation about that happens through private initiatives, gyms or community groups rather than structured public health messaging. If we are serious about prevention, advice about strength, physical activity and bone health should be embedded in our public health approach and supported across our health system. A women's health strategy should therefore address not only clinical services but the role of prevention, education and public health in supporting women's well-being across the life course. We see inequalities in areas of health that are not always immediately recognised as women's health issues. Heart disease remains one of the leading causes of death among women, yet awareness of heart attack symptoms among women remains far lower than it should be. Women are also more likely to experience delayed or missed diagnosis following a heart attack. Similarly, dementia disproportionately affects women. Women live longer on average, which increases their lifetime risk of developing dementia, and they represent a majority of those living with the condition. Those examples demonstrate something important: women's health inequalities are not confined to reproductive health or gynaecology but exist through the entire health system as women go from adolescence to older age. However, our services are still largely organised around isolated conditions rather than the health journey that women experience during their life. For younger women and girls, a lack of consistent support and understanding remains around menstrual health and conditions such as endometriosis and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). Many women describe years of pain before receiving a diagnosis or appropriate treatment. Those delays matter because the longer a diagnosis takes, the greater the impact on a woman's health, fertility, mental well-being and ability to participate in education, employment and everyday life. For women who become pregnant and have children, another critical stage of health emerges. Perinatal mental health, covering pregnancy and the period after childbirth, remains an area in which services have historically been insufficiently and unevenly distributed. Many women experience anxiety, depression or trauma during pregnancy and after childbirth. When I spoke publicly about my experience of perinatal mental health, one of the things that I was most struck by was the number of women who contacted me afterwards to say that what they were experiencing now had a name; they had not known that. Thankfully, they then sought support. That tells us something important about awareness, stigma and how easily women's health issues go unrecognised. A comprehensive women's health strategy would recognise that care for maternal mental health is not optional; it is a fundamental part of our healthcare.

As women move into midlife, perimenopause and menopause bring another set of challenges that can affect physical and mental health. Public awareness of menopause has improved in recent years, but much of that conversation is happening through communities and social media, rather than through structured support in our health service. Women are sharing experiences of anxiety, sleep disruption, night sweats, brain fog and a range of other symptoms without having clear guidance or support from the health system. That cannot be the long-term solution. It reinforces the need for proper clinical pathways, education and support. A GP recently told me that, while primary care provides services such as contraception, cervical screening and maternity care, menopause is not explicitly embedded in the GP contract in Northern Ireland. That is extraordinary. Although every woman will experience it in their lifetime, they cannot access those services through primary care. We need to change that as a minimum, if not have something wider via a public health strategy. Primary care is the front door of our health service. It is where most women first seek help when they begin experiencing symptoms, but there is no structured framework in the contract that recognises menopause as a core element of women's health. That absence reinforces the wider point that women's health has too often been treated as a series of isolated services rather than something embedded across the system, including in primary care, which is the first point of contact. Other jurisdictions across the UK and Ireland have recognised the need for a more coordinated approach. England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland have all developed dedicated women's health strategies or action plans designed to address the gender health gap and ensure that women's health is properly considered across the life course. Northern Ireland is developing work in that area, including the women's health action plan and the Minister's commitment to producing a strategic framework. Those steps are welcome, but individual initiatives are not the same as a fully developed and coordinated strategy. Northern Ireland still lacks a clear approach that connects prevention, diagnosis, treatment and support across the life course and that provides transparency about delivery, funding and outcomes. It is also reasonable to ask whether the current system is meeting our equality obligations. Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act requires public authorities to:

"have due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity".

Given the disparities that we see in women's health outcomes and access to services, we all need to ask that question. Women's health is not a niche issue. It affects half the population at every stage of life. If we want a health system that truly works for everyone, women's health cannot remain an afterthought; it must be considered strategically across the life course and the entire health system. For those reasons, I commend my motion to the House.

1,373 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:13 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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