Wales: NHS: The Quality Statement for women and girls’ health, 2022

[Andy]

"The quality statement describes what health boards are expected to deliver to ensure good quality health services to support women and girls.

Health services for women and girls
Women and girls make up just over 50% of the population in Wales. Despite this, medicine and healthcare services have not necessarily met their needs, resulting in significant disparities in care between men and women, which have only been exacerbated by the pandemic. Whilst 'A Healthier Wales' makes clear its aim of ensuring person-centred care across the country, some approaches to healthcare need to be modified to ensure that women are able to access the care they need in a timely way, that the health service is responsive to their choices, and that research and development reflects women and girls’ lived experiences.

The need for gender specific healthcare
Diagnostic criteria and treatment for conditions that affect both sexes are often based on the male experience, largely because clinical guidelines are not sex or gender-specific but based on a medically modelled approach that often relies on evidence generated in ‘typical’ male experience[footnote1]. This means that women’s gendered reporting of lived experience and symptoms can be undervalued, overlooked or dismissed[footnote2]. There are also different patterns of need and presentation across ethnicity, disability, pregnancy and maternity. The health service in Wales must demonstrate competence across all protected characteristics [footnote3]to respond to the health needs of women and girls, specifically to reduce inequalities in health outcomes."

More at https://gov.wales/quality-statement-women-and-girls-health-html

ME is included in "Annex A: Conditions where there is gender inequality and a need for gender competent services that women might require differently to men (this list is not exhaustive)"

Source:

 

[CRG]

I'm sure this is an important document, though without actual resources to back it up, the overwhelmed under funded Welsh NHS will be unlikely to respond meaningfully. However I baulk at the use of partial statistics to make a point.

The report says:
"which shows that women can expect to live fewer years ‘disability free’ than men so health inequalities can disproportionately affect women"

while the quoted data:
"Healthy life expectancy (HLE) at birth for males was lowest in the most deprived areas at 51.8 years and highest in the least deprived areas at 68.6 years, a difference of 16.9 years."

" HLE at birth for females in the most deprived areas was 50.2 years, 18.3 years fewer than those in the least deprived areas, where females could expect to live 68.4 years in “Good” health."

"Life expectancy (LE) at birth among males living in the most deprived areas was 73.3 years, compared with 82.3 years in the least deprived areas, a difference of 9 years in length of life (Figure 2). LE at birth of females in the most deprived areas was 78.2 years, compared with 85.7 years in the least deprived areas, a difference of 7.5 years"

So yes statistically males in the poorest parts of Wales live disease free 1.6 years longer than their female counterparts while in the wealthiest they live disease free for 0.2 years longer. But males die between 4.9 years and 3.4 years younger than females. That's not actually a health inequality between males and females, it's a difference in how poor health manifests across male and female populations.