Source · Select Committees · Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 9
9
Deferred
Increase NHS digital and social media presence for reproductive health conditions consistently
Conclusion
With women and girls relying on online spaces and a proliferation of femtech apps to fill gaps in their knowledge of reproductive health conditions, the NHS should increase its own digital and social media presence in relation to reproductive health conditions. This should be consistent rather than a one-off campaign and monitored to ensure it reaches those in need of support with their reproductive health. (Paragraph 36) Accessing support and treatment
Government response summary AI-generated
The government did not address the recommendation to increase the NHS's digital and social media presence for reproductive health. Instead, it acknowledged poor experiences with procedural pain and committed to NHS England holding a roundtable in spring 2025 to discuss issues, review training, and identify system changes for pain recognition and management.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government · verbatim extract
Deferred
The NHS recognises the growing reliance of women and girls on online spaces and ‘ femtech ’ apps for information about reproductive health. In addition to the women’s health area on the NHS website, several other initiatives are underway to strengthen the NHS’s digital and social media presence, ensuring consistent and accessible support for those in need. In 2024, 2 new video series were published on the NHS YouTube channel, one on endometriosis and another on heavy menstrual bleeding . These series provide women and girls with more evidence-based information and include short videos featuring NHS doctors. In recent months, the NHS has also used its NHS Instagram channel to provide users with information on a range of reproductive health issues, including heavy periods, contraception, menopause and cervical cancer. This year, NHS England will create additional social media content focused on reproductive health conditions as part of an ‘always on’ strategy, ensuring the information is continuously available and easily discoverable when needed. Awareness days, weeks and months will be leveraged to amplify trusted, authoritative NHS content during important moments, fostering engagement with heightened conversations online. Wider media monitoring will continue to identify timely opportunities to publish content that is aligned with current coverage of relevant topics. Under the overarching theme of ‘women’s health’, NHS England recently launched a competition to identify innovations that improve women’s health . Three high-priority sub-challenges are being addressed through this competition: gynaecological conditions and hormonal health mental health chronic conditions and long-term health The successful projects include: digital mental health support for ethnic minority women that provides access to community-based interventions for support ‘ medtech ’ devices that aim to reduce complications in pregnancy and childbirth diagnostic technologies that will enable access to care and better self-management of long-term and hormonal conditions
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