In June 2021 Manuela Perrotta and I responded to the government’s call for evidence to inform their forthcoming Women’s Health Strategy for England. The government consultation received over 110,000 public survey responses and over 400 written responses. Just before the December holidays, the Department of Health & Social Care published their vision for the Strategy based on the responses received. Reflecting the sentiments shared in the public survey, the department’s vision highlights fertility, pregnancy, pregnancy loss and postnatal support as particular areas of concern. This grouping of priority areas was the second most selected option across all survey participants (after menstrual health and gynaecological conditions), and the most selected priority area for those aged 30 to 39. Infertility and fertility treatment are integral parts of this broader concern with reproductive and maternal health.
The vision document highlights the need for ‘more trusted and easier to understand information’ about women’s health issues, including reproductive health, which is a key point that we address in our written evidence. In our submission we emphasised that there is an abundance of information about infertility and fertility treatments, especially online. But prospective and current fertility patients often find the information difficult to navigate and identifying good quality information can be challenging. We found that our study participants generally felt that NHS websites offered good sources of reliable information. In our written evidence, we suggest ways for NHS websites to expand their remit to cater for fertility patients’ needs. We were excited therefore, to learn that one of the next steps for the Strategy will be to progress the quality of online information in collaboration with NHS Digital. We hope that the needs of fertility patients will be addressed in this continued work. We also look forward to following further developments as well as the government’s dedicated Sexual and Reproductive Health Strategy, which is expected later this year.