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Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber has welcomed the renewed Women’s Health Strategy, highlighting the role of regional innovation programmes already helping to address long-standing inequalities in women’s health.

Women’s health has historically been under-researched and under-resourced, from heart disease to reproductive health and chronic conditions. Despite progress in recent years, long-standing gaps remain: women are still less likely to receive timely diagnoses for certain conditions, and health outcomes vary widely depending on socioeconomic background, ethnicity, and geography.

These disparities reflect broader structural inequalities affecting women across society, including in access to investment that supports innovation. Studies show that female company founders receive less investment than their male counterparts, with recent research showing that if women started businesses at the same rate as men the economy would benefit from an additional £250 billion.*

The renewed strategy, part of the government’s 10-year health plan, aims to harness innovation, support women earlier, and ensure their voices are heard – transforming outcomes and reducing inequalities.

The strategy has three principal objectives:
1. To embed women’s experiences and feedback in mechanisms for accountability and funding decisions
2. To redesign how women access, navigate and experience key services, particularly in gynaecology, menstrual health and menopause care.
3. To invest in education, innovation and research to address long-standing gaps in women’s health outcomes and evidence.

Supporting women’s health through innovation

As one of 15 regional Health Innovation Networks, Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber supports the advancement of health innovation and the drive for equitable care. The national Health Innovation Network recently published Innovation in Women’s Health: Helping to Forge a More Equitable Future, following a roundtable with industry leaders exploring how innovation can strengthen delivery of the Women’s Health Strategy. This report highlights approaches that we actively support through our local programmes.

Throughout 2025/26 we have brought together key women’s health stakeholders within our region to explore innovation through the lens of the Women’s Health Strategy. Two innovation showcase events have been held, focusing on empowering women’s voices and pelvic health. The discussions highlighted that innovative solutions must be shaped with people who have lived experience, and that collaboration across partners is key for driving the women’s health agenda at pace and sharing learning from exemplar work across the region.

Ripple Women’s Digital Health Challenge

The national Ripple Women’s Digital Health Challenge supports female innovators with digital health solutions and has been developed to create a pipeline of scalable innovations. It seeks to address the £11 billion cost of unmet women’s health needs in the UK and contributes to the global effort to close a health gap estimated to cost US $1 trillion by 2040.

Two have been selected as winners and their app ideas are addressing common challenges:

• NVP Minds supports women with mental wellbeing during Hyperemesis Gravidarum (severe morning sickness)
• HearHer helps parents and carers support children with mental health or developmental challenges.

These innovations demonstrate how empowering female innovators can turn insights into practical solutions that directly reduce the health and economic burden of unmet women’s health needs.

Springboard for women innovators programme.

Locally, our Springboard programme equips female innovators from all backgrounds—including minority communities and those traditionally underrepresented in health innovation—to turn ideas into practical solutions. It tackles structural barriers such as underrepresentation and limited capital for female-led ventures, helping women gain the confidence and skills needed to make a real impact in health innovation.

Together, the Ripple Women’s Digital Health Challenge and Springboard programme directly align with the strategy’s focus on innovation, prevention, and closing structural gaps in women’s health.

Richard Stubbs, CEO of Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber, said:

“For too long, women’s health has been underfunded, under-researched and underserved; the updated Women’s Health Strategy will help to ensure women from all backgrounds have access to timely, high-quality care.

“Technology has the potential to address women’s needs – to shorten waiting lists for gynaecology, the longest of any specialty; and to find innovative ways to help women through the crucial stages of life such as puberty, childbearing and menopause.”

*Source Innovate UK