Gynaecology waiting lists in UK double, leaving women in pain

Waiting lists for gynaecology appointments across the UK have more than doubled since February 2020, BBC research reveals.

Records show around three-quarters of a million (755,046) women’s health appointments are waiting to happen – up from 360,400 just before the pandemic.

This would suggest around 630,000 people – at the very least – are on the list to be seen for problems that range from fibroids and endometriosis to incontinence and menopause care.

Health ministers across the UK say they are working on plans to improve the situation, but health leaders say that women are being let down.

Anna Cooper, 31, from near Wrexham in North Wales, has had severe endometriosis since her teens.

The condition – where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows outside it – has left her with permanent organ damage.

She has had to have 17 operations, including a hysterectomy to remove her womb.

She also has two stomas in place for life because much of her bladder and bowel have had to be removed. She lives with her partner and young daughter.

“The disease controls my social life, my work life and my ability to function every day.

“It is not just a period problem – it is a whole body problem. It ripples through your body,” she says.

The BBC spoke to her in 2023 about setting up her own charity, Menstrual Health Project.

A year on, she says she is still in pain and is on the NHS waiting list yet again because she has experienced bleeding after her hysterectomy.

Anna wears a morphine patch to help deal with pain every day.

But for years, she says medics did not listen to her, and told her the pain was “in her head” and that she had to “just get used to it”.

She feels getting a diagnosis sooner would have changed her life: “The delay in my care has cost me some of my major organs.

“Doctors have told me that if they’d caught it sooner, I wouldn’t have ended up the way I am, living with two stomas and being in early menopause at the age of 31.”

In the last three years she made the decision to spend £25,000 on private operations, borrowing money to help.

She counts herself lucky to get private care but feels she was “almost left with no choice” because the waiting lists are so long: “I can be a mum who isn’t just in her bed constantly because she is crippled with pain.”

Endometriosis has “mentally tormented” her for the most of her adult life.

“It is really difficult dealing with a condition where I look absolutely fine from the outside, but internally, I’m just in despair.”

There are some signs that waiting lists are starting to improve.

Waits have not been rising as steeply this year and NHS England’s latest figures show there has been a drop in numbers on the waiting list of over 4,700 compared to the month before.

But the situation is still much worse than pre-pandemic. In Feb 2020 there were 66 gynaecology waits of more than a year. Now there are more than 22,000.

Dr Sue Mann, NHS England’s national clinical director for women’s health, acknowledged some women wait too long for crucial gynaecology appointments, despite staff working hard to see more patients.

She says one way of helping is specialist teams working outside of hospitals.