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UK slides down women's health rankings for fourth year in a row
The UK has dropped down a worldwide women's health league for the fourth consecutive year, as countries such as Lithuania, Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia perform better.
Experts described the change as 'alarming' and 'unacceptable', as it was also revealed women in the UK were more likely to experience poor emotional health and chronic pain than the EU average.
There has been a year-on-year decline in how women in the UK rate their pregnancy care, and they were less likely to be screened for conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer than in comparable countries, the global study found.
The UK now ranks at just 41 out of 142 countries in the Hologic Global Women's Health Index, down from 37 last year and 30 in 2023. The annual league table is based on surveys of more than 78,000 women globally. The UK is also below the US, where women's healthcare has been hit by restrictions on access to abortion in many states.
The report found women living in the UK were now more likely to experience negative feelings such as sadness, stress and anger than they were in 2020 during the pandemic, with 39 per cent saying they felt 'worry'.
The number of women in the UK who thought their pregnancy care was 'high quality' has also dropped every year since the survey began, falling from 79 per cent four years ago to 72 per cent in this year's report.
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And a record 29 per cent of UK women said they experienced daily physical pain, up from 24 per cent four years ago. More than 25 per cent said they were limited in daily activities by ongoing health issues.
Janet Lindsay, the chief executive of the charity Wellbeing of Women, said: 'These figures are unacceptable for one of the world's wealthier nations and reflect long-standing underinvestment in women's health.
'Women's health should not be treated as an afterthought. It requires sustained political leadership, better access to care, increased research funding, and a shift in culture that truly values and listens to women.'
Lindsay called for women's health to be put at 'the heart of our national agenda' in the government's forthcoming ten-year plan for the NHS.
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Researchers blamed the rankings slide on the UK's failure to act to improve women's healthcare since the pandemic, despite the creation of a women's health strategy.
'While the women's health strategy, now nearly three years in, has delivered some progress, it is yet to deliver significant impact,' the report's authors said. 'The latest data exposes a widening gap between policy ambition and the everyday experiences of women.'
Professor Ranee Thakar, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, added: 'Too often, systemic, operational, structural and cultural issues mean women do not get the care they deserve. The government's ten-year health plan offers a vital opportunity to change this.'
For the index, each country was assigned a score based on its performance in five areas of women's health and wellbeing: preventive care (such as screening for cancer and high blood pressure); basic needs (including ease of access to food and housing); health and safety (including how safe women feel walking at night and the quality of pregnancy care); individual health (including how pain affects women's daily lives); and emotional health.
The UK scored 59 out of 100, putting it below the EU average of 60 and on a par with Iceland, Bulgaria and France.
Although the UK ranked in the top third of countries worldwide, it was in the bottom third in Europe, placed at just 23 out of 31 European countries.
Other countries have made progress and moved ahead. Slovenia, for example, was ranked at 27 out of 31 European countries last year, but has now edged in front of the UK into 19th place.
'This is a four-year decline that no one can ignore,' said Tim Simpson, a senior director at Hologic. 'Women's health must remain a national priority, yet this data shows we are losing ground.'
The top-ranked countries globally were Taiwan (68), Kuwait (67), Austria (66), Switzerland (65) and Finland (65).
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Other countries which outperformed the UK included Bahrain, which was eighth overall with a score of 64, Kazakhstan (13th with a score of 63), Saudi Arabia (14th with a score of 63), Slovenia (31st with a score of 60) and Kosovo (35th with a score of 60).
New Zealand was ranked at 37th and the USA at 38th, both with a score of 60, while Australia dropped to 43rd place, with a score of 59.
The worst countries for women's health were Afghanistan, with a score of 30, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (34), Chad (35), Sierra Leone (36) and Liberia (37). Globally, the average score was 53.
This year's index was compiled based on data obtained from interviews carried out in 2023 with around 500 women in each country by the global analytics firm Gallup and Hologic, a medical technology company specialising in women's health.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said that the previous government was in power at the time the surveys for the report were carried out.
'Women have been let down by a health service which was not focused on their needs, which is why we are on a mission to get the NHS working for women,' the spokesman added. 'Equality will be at the heart of our ten-year health plan to fix the NHS.
'We're making progress, including adding 4.2 million extra appointments, tackling gynaecology waiting lists using the private sector, trialling AI for breast cancer screening, and from October this year, making emergency hormonal contraception free in pharmacies.
'There's still more to do, and we are committed to turning commitments into tangible action.'
