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

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

This suggests that around 630,000 people – at least – are on the watch list for problems ranging 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 women are being let down.

Anna Cooper, 31, from near Wrexham in North Wales, has had severe endometriosis since she was a teenager.

This condition – where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside it – has caused permanent damage to her organ.

17 operations including hysterectomy were required to remove her uterus.

She also has two stomas for the rest of her life because her bladder and most of her bowel had to be removed. She lives with her partner and younger daughter.

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

“It’s not just a menstrual problem – it’s a whole body problem. It ripples throughout your body,” she says.

BBC spoke to him in 2023 About setting up your own charity, Menstrual Health Project,

A year later, she says she is still in pain and once again on the NHS waiting list because she experienced bleeding after a hysterectomy.

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

But she says for years doctors wouldn’t listen to her, telling her the pain was “all in her head” and she’d “just have to get used to it”.

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

“Doctors have told me that if they had caught it earlier, I wouldn’t be like this, living with two stomas and in early menopause at 31.”

He decided to spend £25,000 on personal projects over the past three years, borrowing money to help.

She considers herself lucky to have private care but feels she was “almost left with no choice” because the waiting list was so long: “I can be a mother who isn’t constantly at my bedside because He is crippled with pain.”

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

“It’s really difficult to deal with a situation where I look absolutely fine on the outside, but on the inside I’m just in despair.”

There are some signs that the waiting list is beginning to improve.

Waits aren’t increasing that fast this year Latest figures from NHS England Show the waiting list has dropped by more than 4,700 compared to last month.

But the situation is still much worse than before the pandemic. In February 2020, 66 gynecologists were waiting for more than a year. Now there are more than 22,000.

Dr Sue Mann, NHS England’s national clinical director for women’s health, admitted that some women wait too long for important gynecological appointments, despite staff working hard to see more patients Are doing.

She says one way to help is through specialist teams working outside hospitals.

“Some of these conditions can be very well managed by specialist health care teams in the community, which is why we are expanding neighborhood women’s health centers into every local care system across the country.”

In Wales, the government plans to publish a women’s health plan next month.

A Welsh Government spokesperson said, “A 10-year women’s health plan is being developed to deliver the reforms needed to provide good quality health services to women throughout their lifetime.”

Regions of Northern Ireland are working on a plan to improve gynecological services by taking forward 20 Recommendations made in a recent report,

The health department says some will require “additional funding and time upfront.”

Scotland’s Women’s Health Minister Jenny Minto said excessively long wait times were unacceptable and that more money was being spent on women’s health.

“That’s one of the initial priorities of Women’s Health Scheme It aims to improve access to appropriate support, diagnosis and treatment for women.”

Anna Cooper is hoping the minister will “walk his talk”.

When governments say they will prioritize women’s health, she says, they have to show that they are doing so.

“Currently they’re not showing it, and it’s people’s lives that we’re rolling the dice on… and having a daughter, I really fear for the future of young girls and women.”

We combined together the latest data available for all four countries to estimate the size of the gynecological waiting list for the UK, As tracked by RCOG,

This includes waiting for gynecological appointments and planned procedures and excludes urgent appointments for things like suspected cancer.

This tells you how big the waiting list is, but some patients may need more than one appointment.

Our estimate of the number of people waiting is at least 634,239 – and could be significantly higher.

we worked on it after seeing Data from NHS in England This shows that there is a gap of about 16% between the number of appointments on the waiting list and the number of people waiting.

We have implemented this in the gynecological waiting list.

This may underestimate the size of the problem, as gynecology patients are less likely to wait for two appointments than patients in some other specialties.

Additional reporting by Vicki Lowder, Katherine Snowdon and Alison Benjamin