Nusrat Ghani – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nusrat Ghani on 2016-04-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much funding his Department has allocated to charities which support women affected by endometriosis in each of the last three years.

Jane Ellison

Endometriosis can be asymptomatic; however, some studies have shown that the length of time from the onset of symptoms to the diagnosis of endometriosis can be up to eight years in the United Kingdom.

Due to the fact that endometriosis can be asymptomatic it is not possible to estimate the precise prevalence of the condition. The number of people who are affected by endometriosis but have not been diagnosed with the condition is therefore unknown.

However, estimates of the prevalence of the condition range from 2% to 10% of women of reproductive age, to 50% of infertile women. Endometriosis UK estimates that around 1.5 million to 2 million women in the UK have the condition.

The number of people who have been diagnosed with endometriosis is not collected centrally. However the table below shows a count of finished admission episodes (FAEs) with a primary or secondary diagnosis of endometriosis, for the years 2010-11 to 2014-15. However, the data only includes the diagnosis of endometriosis where there was a hospital admission. There may be further cases of the condition that were diagnosed and treated in another healthcare setting. These data should not be described as counts of people as the same person may have been admitted to hospital on more than one occasion within any given time period.

Count of finished admission episodes (FAEs) with a primary or secondary diagnosis of endometriosis, 2010-11 to 2014-15

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Health and Social Care Information Centre

The Department’s Innovation, Excellence and Strategic Development Grant for Endometriosis UK was awarded in the 2014/15 funding round. The project title to which the grant was allocated to was ‘Endometriosis Patient Support Groups aligned to Specialised Endometriosis Centres’. The funding granted per the award letter (2015-16 and 2016-17 funding was indicative at the time of the grant) was:

2014-15 £63,686

2015-16 £59,718

2016-17 £65,403