NHS is letting women down through ‘medical misogyny’, says Wes Streeting
“Medical misogyny” in the UK is letting women down, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, has admitted, as a survey showed half of female patients felt they had been dismissed or ignored because of their sex.A report from Mumsnet, which examined data taken from the site over the past decade, warned of “structural and deeply embedded” sexism in UK healthcare.A survey of women using the site found that more than half believed the NHS was institutionally misogynistic.The survey also found that:50% of women believe they have been dismissed, ignored or not believed by an NHS professional because of their sex.64% say they have been explicitly told their pain or symptoms were “normal” or “in their head”.
68% think the NHS does not take women’s health concerns seriously.Ahead of the publication of a women’s health strategy, which was announced in 2022 and is expected imminently, Streeting said the report showed that the NHS had let women down too often and for “far too long”.The health secretary said he was “driving change” through more funding, menopause support, moving health services into the community and the introduction of Martha’s rule, which gives patients a right to an urgent second opinion.He added: “Medical misogyny has no place within our NHS.It was founded on the principles of equality, yet time and time again, women are ignored and not believed.
I want women across the country to know we’re going to tackle this.”The report, which coincided with International Women’s Day on Sunday, draws on almost 100,000 posts from Mumsnet between 2015 and 2025.The messages describe “dismissal, disbelief or deprioritisation in healthcare settings”, with many users saying they were kept in a holding pattern of “wait and see” instead of being given treatment.One woman with adenomyosis and severe endometriosis who lives in near constant pain said she was dismissed by doctors for years with comments like “period pain is normal, you may have a low pain threshold”.Another said she had been going to doctors for pelvic pain for 22 years before being diagnosed with the condition.
“I haven’t been able to have intercourse for years due to the pain it caused,” she said.A woman who went to her doctor about a “burning band of pain” around her uterus was told she “seemed very emotional” and should consider counselling.The report also states that fertility and conception are examples of medical misogyny with “reassurance often experienced not as comfort but as dismissal”.Delays had major consequences for some women, including one who lost two fallopian tubes, an ovary and a section of bowel waiting for endometriosis surgery.She said: “My fertility and bowel function would have been saved if I had been treated years earlier, before the endo spread, when I was first put on the waiting list.
”House of Lords research published in 2021 cited multiple studies showing poorer health outcomes for women.A government inquiry in 2020 said an arrogant culture in which serious medical complications were dismissed as “women’s problems” had contributed to a string of healthcare scandals over several decades.“For more than a decade, women on Mumsnet have described the same pattern: pain minimised, symptoms dismissed and a constant need to fight simply to be heard,” said Justine Roberts, Mumsnet’s founder.“Politicians have repeatedly acknowledged that women’s health has been historically overlooked.But acknowledgment without reform does nothing.
And every day of delay in fixing the problem means more women left in pain, more diagnoses missed, and more trust eroded,”Mumsnet is also calling for mandatory training on sex-specific bias and women’s health for all health professionals, ending the routine normalisation of women’s pain and the creation of women’s health hubs in each of England’s 42 NHS regions,All but three of these integrated health boards have at least one hub but Mumsnet said implementation was uneven,It called for ringfenced funding, clear standards and transparent accountability to create “visible and measurable” infrastructure,Roberts added: “Few examples capture medical misogyny more clearly than the expectation that women should tolerate severe pain during gynaecological procedures.
No woman should be expected to endure avoidable pain as the price of care,”
Iran war drives oil prices above $100 a barrel for first time since 2022
Global oil prices surged past $100 (£74, AU$142) a barrel for the first time since 2022 as fallout from the US-Israel war with Iran continues to wipe 20m barrels of oil from the market each day.A weekend of escalating violence in the Middle East intensified concerns around a sustained supply crunch, propelling oil prices to their highest level in four years and triggering a deep stock market sell-off.At least five energy sites in and around Tehran were hit by strikes, prompting accounts of “apocalyptic” scenes in the Iranian capital. Kuwait’s national oil company also announced a precautionary production cut amid retaliatory attacks by Iran.The strait of Hormuz – one of the world’s most important trade arteries, through which about a fifth of global oil and seaborne gas tankers typically pass – has been in effect closed for a week
Britain’s job market ‘floundering’ as companies remain cautious about hiring
Britain’s jobs market is “floundering” amid weak hiring demand, with only limited signs of recovery, data has revealed.Companies remain cautious about hiring staff amid cost pressures and economic uncertainty, according to two reports released on Monday. They show the labour market continues to be in a fragile position.A monthly employment index from BDO, an accountancy and consultancy firm, is running at its weakest level in nearly 15 years. It has had its worst reading since March 2011, when the jobs market was still recovering from the financial crash
AI allows hackers to identify anonymous social media accounts, study finds
AI has made it vastly easier for malicious hackers to identify anonymous social media accounts, a new study has warned.In most test scenarios, large language models (LLMs) – the technology behind platforms such as ChatGPT – successfully matched anonymous online users with their actual identities on other platforms, based on the information they posted.The AI researchers Simon Lermen and Daniel Paleka said LLMs make it cost effective to perform sophisticated privacy attacks, forcing a “fundamental reassessment of what can be considered private online”.In their experiment, the researchers fed anonymous accounts into an AI, and got it to scrape all the information it could. They gave a hypothetical example of a user talking about struggling at school, and walking their dog Biscuit through a “Dolores park”
ChatGPT driving rise in reports of ‘satanic’ organised ritual abuse, UK experts say
ChatGPT is driving a rise in reports of organised ritual abuse, UK experts have said, as survivors of “satanic” sexual violence use the AI tool for therapy.Police say organised ritual abuse and “witchcraft, spirit possession and spiritual abuse” (WSPRA) against children is under-reported in the UK. There is no modern-day charge that covers it specifically, but such offending is typified by sexual abuse, violence and neglect involving ritualistic elements – sometimes inspired by satanism, fascism or esoteric religious beliefs – to control victims.Perpetrators include abusive families and networks, human traffickers, online gangs and paedophile rings.There have been 14 UK criminal cases since 1982 in which ritualistic practices in sexual abuse were acknowledged
Lewis Hamilton confident Ferrari ‘in the fight’ with Mercedes for 2026 F1 championship
Lewis Hamilton has declared he is fired-up and optimistic in his belief that Ferrari will be in the world championship fight with Mercedes after the new Formula One season opened in Australia on Sunday.The race in Melbourne was won by Mercedes’ George Russell, with his teammate Kimi Antonelli in second but Ferrari claimed third and fourth for Charles Leclerc and Hamilton. Both drivers executed superb starts to make up places to first and third respectively and for the opening 12 laps were very much in the fight with Russell at the front of the field.Ultimately they were not in the mix for the win after Mercedes took advantage of a virtual safety car to take a cheap pitstop while Ferrari chose not to do so. Nonetheless the Ferrari did show impressive pace and a reinvigorated Hamilton maintained he felt the they could yet catch the leaders
Collingwood’s cool heads rise to big AFL occasion and make point to naysayers | Jonathan Horn
St Kilda spent the summer talking up Sunday night’s opening round game, and Collingwood spent the summer being talked down. It was St Kilda’s occasion, but it was Collingwood’s game. The Saints had the hope, the hyper-inflated recruits, the best paid player in the sport and the largest home-and-away crowd they’d ever played in front of. But Collingwood had cool heads, manic pressure, a wily old fox in his 426th game and two brothers who had 77 touches between them.The Pies didn’t have the greatest of summers
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