British women among angriest in Europe, health survey reveals

British women are among the angriest in Europe, a global health survey has revealed.

More than 20 per cent of women in Britain said they had experienced feelings of rage for much of the previous day.

British women were also 47 per cent more likely to say they felt angry than a year earlier.

The findings were published in the Hologic Global Women’s Health Index, a yearly league table based on polling of more than 76,000 women and girls aged over 15 worldwide.

Anna O’Sullivan, co-founder of women’s health awareness group CensHERship and founder of the FutureFemHealth news platform, told the Daily Mail: “These figures reflect years of long waiting lists, delayed diagnoses and women’s health being treated as an afterthought.

“We’ve seen a significant increase in awareness and discussion about women’s health over the last few years, but access to care has not kept up with that.

“These findings should be a wake-up call that it’s time for long-term, sustainable investment to ensure women can access timely healthcare, trusted information and earlier diagnosis before conditions become more complex and costly to treat.”

The data suggested anger levels among British women have risen sharply.

Rates across the rest of Europe, however, remained broadly the same.

The survey, which involved more than 140 countries, found three in 10 UK women said they felt sadness, compared with the EU average of 25 per cent.

The data, collected in February 2024 and released this week, also showed that around four in 10 women in both the UK and EU felt worry.

A third of women in the UK reported being in pain, up 10 per cent on the previous year.

Three in 10 women also said they lived with chronic health problems, up seven per cent on the year before.

Chronic health problems are long-term conditions that may need ongoing care or management.

Health experts said women in the UK were increasingly frustrated by the gap between the NHS care they expected and the care they received.

The report took a snapshot of the national mood, with participants asked about the emotions they had experienced “during a lot of the day yesterday”.

The UK placed sixth among 37 European countries for anger.

The highest levels were recorded in Malta, where 26 per cent of women reported feelings of rage, followed by Greece at 25 per cent, the Czech Republic and Albania at 23 per cent, and Spain at 22 per cent.

Ireland ranked at 18 per cent, while Germany, France and Switzerland each reported 17 per cent.

Britain has also slipped in Hologic’s overall global rankings for women’s health.

The UK is now 48th, close to dropping out of the top third of countries worldwide, after ranking 40th out of 142 countries last year.

Taiwan ranked first, followed by Latvia, Japan, Vietnam and Poland. Singapore, Germany and Austria were also among the leading countries.

Tim Simpson, a senior manager at Hologic, said: “Women are telling us they want earlier diagnosis and faster access to care.

“Improving women’s health will take continued commitment from policymakers, the NHS, clinicians and industry working together to deliver the changes women are asking for.”

A separate Hologic survey carried out last month found that almost 70 per cent of women had faced delays seeking NHS care in the past five years.

Two in five said difficulties accessing healthcare had left them feeling frustrated or anxious.

The survey’s findings reinforced official figures showing that Britain has become more anxious since before the pandemic.

The Office for National Statistics said 22.5 per cent of UK adults reported “high anxiety yesterday” between July and September 2024, up from 20.4 per cent in the same period in 2019.

Among women, the figure was 26.3 per cent, compared with 18.5 per cent among men.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “It is unacceptable that the UK continues to lag behind other countries when it comes to women’s health.”