From stigma and siloed systems to underinvestment and red tape, women face numerous barriers when it comes to accessing better care, but femtech founders and policy experts say digital innovation could offer a path forward.

In a new report, a panel of global experts from the fields of health, femtech and law have called for digital innovation, life-course care, and the breaking down of outdated silos in medicine to address global gender health gaps. 

The group of experts, led by Kate Lancaster, CEO of The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, also agree that women’s health should be seen not as a subset of reproductive care, but as the broader ‘health of women’.

A significant number of chronic health conditions, including neurological disorders such as migraine and autoimmune diseases, are known to affect women more than men.

Yet globally, women continue to face disproportionately high rates of underdiagnosis, delayed treatment, and poorer outcomes. 

In the UK, which continues to have the widest gender health inequalities in the G20, women spend an average of nine years in poor health, 25 per cent more of their lives than men. 

The panel discussion has informed a three-series report, FemHealth Focus, commissioned by UK law firm Mills & Reeve, highlighting the role of technology and innovation in driving change, and the role that public healthcare systems like the NHS can play in supporting women’s health innovators.

In the second part of the report, published recently, experts highlighted that fragmented commissioning structures, siloed services, and the way women’s health is conceptualised are all obstacles to a more ‘joined-up’ approach that could help to deliver improved outcomes for women.

The global female healthtech market is growing at an annual rate of 16 per cent, and experts agree that digital technologies and AI have a ‘central role’ to play in ‘boosting efficiency’. 

Yet healthtech companies struggle to scale due to stigma, underfunding, and the weight of ‘NHS bureaucracy’. 

One panellist said it had taken “blood, sweat and tears” to secure a deal with a single NHS Trust. The challenge was not a ‘lack of willingness’, but the ‘weight of bureaucracy and segregated budgets’, they added. 

Many early-stage companies enter the market targeting consumers directly, with the hope of securing a future partnership within the NHS, but this often raises concerns about ‘equity and access’.

To address this, the panel called for stronger engagement in women’s health from corporates and insurers, with insurance still a relatively underdeveloped market in femtech.

Some panellists reported ‘growing interest’ in the corporate market, where employers are increasingly aware of the need to address women’s health as part of their recruitment and retention strategies.

At the same time, they say, greater health literacy and education are needed to break down barriers, particularly for startups seeking investment.

Some founders on the panel reported difficulty securing investment due to investor discomfort with women’s health-related topics.

Businesses in this sector are also disproportionately impacted by additional challenges, such as censorship on social platforms and bias in accessing financial services.

CensHERship, a campaign group working to end online censorship of women’s health content, found that many femtech companies not only faced barriers on social media and e-commerce platforms but had been refused bank accounts or were subjected to higher fees by banks and insurance providers, according to the report. 

“There remains a stigma attached to women’s health that not only impacts investment opportunities but also leads to a deprioritisation in health budgets and services, and in education,” the report states. 

NHS reform – an opportunity for the UK to lead the way in women’s health

The report comes at a pivotal moment for women’s health around the world, and just weeks after the UK Health Secretary unveiled his 10-Year Plan to reform the NHS, introducing shifts from hospital to community, sickness to prevention and analogue to digital. 

However, despite promises that the strategy will play a fundamental role in delivering the government’s commitment to women’s health, “never again being ignored”, the plan has been accused of “falling short” for women.

RCOG president Professor Ranee Thakar, said in a statement: “While the plan lays strong foundations, it falls short in pledging to eliminate the gender health gap that is costing women years of life and good health…

“[The] plan must mark a move away from treating women’s health as a collection of niche issues towards offering women excellent, joined-up care across their life course, with investment in the women’s health workforce, Femtech and research.”

The 10-year Women’s Health Strategy, published in 2022, set out a six-point plan which promised to address these inequalities, including expanding women’s health hubs.

Women’s health hubs were intended to address fragmented systems and siloed services by bringing together primary care, diagnostics and specialist consultations under one roof, and were seen as ‘key areas’ for digital transformation, presenting a “major opportunity” for tech innovators.

But their impact has been limited so far, with only 14 of 42 Integrated Care Boards currently offering all core services. 

The prospect of NHS reform could present a major opportunity for the UK to address gaps in care – and position itself as a world-leader in women’s health – by adopting solutions that address their unique needs.

“What we need is government-backed sustainable funding, so companies can really grow,” Gayle Curry, partner at Mills & Reeve, commented. 

“At the same time, we need cross-sector collaboration to deliver joined-up and accessible services.

“There is a place for the NHS, there is a place for the private sector, and there’s a place for innovation. What we need to do is work together to be able to offer that.”

‘Thoughtful’ innovation based on the needs of ‘real women’

As a GP specialising in women’s health for over 20 years, Dr Nikki Kanani has witnessed the challenges preventing women from accessing better healthcare first hand, and is now designing solutions to deliver back into the system, as co-founder of Aneira Health.

Aneira combines virtual and in-person support with AI and clinical expertise to offer personalised, tech-enabled plans for women throughout their lifespan. 

“[Women] are often treated in silos, and dismissed and deprioritised,” Dr Kanani told Femtech World.

“If a woman has to keep explaining her story and moving around the system to find the next bit of her care, that system has failed her.”

While the NHS has typically been “risk-averse” when it comes to partnering with innovators in the femtech sector, the 10-Year plan could well see more public-private collaboration, which Dr Kanani says would be a “huge opportunity” to build ethical, evidence-based tools based on the needs of real women. 

“We’ve got this boom in femtech, with hundreds of different point solutions, but without integration regulation… none of those will deliver their promises,” she said.

“There is a nod in the 10-year plan to public private partnerships, and if we can use those to build ethical evidence-based tools rooted in women’s real needs, that’s a huge opportunity to stop forcing women to fit into system that wasn’t designed for them, but instead build a system that is designed around women’s bodies, experiences and lives.”

But while advanced technology can play an important part in bridging some of these gaps, inequalities won’t be addressed by innovation alone; it will take ‘system-wide’ change.

“Digital can be empowering, but only when it’s inclusive and thoughtful,” Dr Kanani says.

“We’ve noticed that as we’ve built our organisation that there needs to be a power shift, from the centre to power-sharing with communities, so women are co-designers of care.

“Health equity for women, particularly those from minoritised, marginalised and underserved communities, won’t be achieved through strategy alone. We need a really deep, system-wide culture shift.”

The latest FemHealth report is both a call to action and a blueprint for change. 

Many solutions which could help address the gender health gap already exist, but to see real results, developers and policymakers must reimagine how care is designed in line with women’s real needs.

As Professor Dame Lesley Regan, Women’s Health Ambassador for England, Chair Wellbeing of Women, and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Imperial College London, who contributed to the report, puts it: “Women make up 51 per cent of the UK population, undertake 68 per cent of all unpaid caring roles in society and are responsible for 80 per cent of all household health decisions.

“Optimising their health is far from being a niche concern; it is a national imperative.”