The Renewed Women's Health Strategy for England: What employers need to know

In April 2026, the UK government published The Renewed Women's Health Strategy for England, a ten-year plan to close a gender health gap that, on almost every measure, has been widening. The strategy covers menstrual health, fertility and pregnancy, pregnancy loss, menopause, mental health, cardiovascular disease and healthy ageing. Its central argument is simple: a health system that does not work for 51% of the population does not work at all.

The renewed strategy builds on the original 2022 Women's Health Strategy, which the government now acknowledges "was set up to fail" by operating inside an outdated model of NHS care. This version goes further and it lands alongside a separate but connected piece of legislation, the Employment Rights Act 2025, which places new duties on large UK employers to support women's health at work.

For UK employers, The Renewed Women's Health Strategy for England signals a decisive shift that women's health is now a strategic issue, not a private one. 

For HR and benefits teams, the most relevant themes cut across fertility benefits UK employers are expected to offer, workplace fertility support, menopause support at work, menopause benefits UK-wide employers now need to evidence, and new expectations on pregnancy loss at work.

What's included in The Renewed Women's Health Strategy

The strategy takes a life-course approach, organising priorities by life stage and health need rather than by disease or speciality. That means one continuous arc from puberty and menstrual health, through fertility, pregnancy and pregnancy loss, into perimenopause, menopause and healthy ageing. It explicitly recognises that girls born today will likely spend more of their lives post-reproduction than in their reproductive years, and that the system needs to catch up to that reality.

Across 117 actions, three priority clusters map most directly to workplace policy and benefits:

• Menstrual health and gynaecological conditions, including endometriosis, fibroids, adenomyosis and chronic pelvic pain
• Fertility benefits UK employers could offer and pregnancy loss at work, including preconception care, fertility preservation, miscarriage support and postnatal mental and pelvic health
• Perimenopause and menopause, including redesigned NHS pathways, digital menopause services through a new virtual hospital (NHS Online), and workplace support

The strategy is also explicit about where responsibility sits. It commits government, the NHS and local authorities to action, but it expects partnership with industry, voluntary organisations and employers. In other words, the message to UK employers is that they are expected to understand and respond to women's health needs at work, not treat them as private matters.

Why women's health is now a core workplace issue

From "women's problem" to business and legal priority

The case for action is no longer only a cultural or wellbeing one. Over the past two years, menopause alone has been reframed as a workplace issue with legal, economic and inclusion implications. Government-backed guidance now emphasises menopause policies, manager training, reasonable adjustments and flexible working as baseline expectations, not nice-to-haves.

The Women's Health Strategy layers onto a broader policy direction: the Government will take "far more decisive action on the significant contribution poor health makes" to the gender pay gap and to women's economic inactivity. Musculoskeletal conditions, poor mental health, endometriosis and menopause are all named as drivers of women leaving the workforce and all are areas where employer-sponsored benefits can meaningfully change outcomes.

The Employment Rights Act 2025 brings this into sharper focus. Under the Act, employers with 250 or more employees will be required to publish an action plan outlining specific steps to address the gender pay gap and support employees going through the menopause. This requirement will begin in 2027, with voluntary plans starting to be published from Spring 2026.

The Act also introduces protected bereavement leave, including for pregnancy loss before 24 weeks, a significant shift for how UK workplaces handle miscarriage and early pregnancy loss.

For UK employers, the pivot is simple: aligning with The Renewed Women's Health Strategy is both a compliance opportunity and a talent opportunity. Early movers will strengthen retention, build healthier leadership pipelines and signal a genuinely inclusive employer brand to a workforce that is actively evaluating where it stays.

Policy themes that impact the workplace

Fertility, pregnancy, pregnancy loss and postnatal support

A substantial section of the Women's Health Strategy is dedicated to reproductive choice, recognising that supporting women to decide if, when and how they have children is fundamental to lifelong health, wellbeing and economic participation.

The strategy commits to improvements across contraception, abortion care, preconception health, fertility services and miscarriage support. It also explicitly tackles pregnancy loss, including reviewing a "graded model of care" for recurrent miscarriage, expanding bereavement facilities and embedding the Sands National Bereavement Care Pathway across NHS providers.

For employers, this policy direction translates into several practical areas:

• Fertility journeys are visible in policy. IVF, IUI, fertility preservation, donor conception and family-building routes all sit within scope. The NHS is working to expand fertility preservation to those facing medical treatments that could harm their fertility, a group that includes employees of any age. Workplace policies and benefits need to reflect that reality rather than assume a single, linear path to parenthood.
• Pregnancy loss belongs in workplace policy. With protected bereavement leave now covering pregnancy loss up to 24 weeks, employers that previously relied on informal compassionate leave will need clearer, more consistent policies and manager training to apply them well.
• Inclusive benefit design matters. Supporting single parents by choice, LGBTQ+ employees and people pursuing all paths to parenthood is no longer a differentiator, it is increasingly the baseline expectation. Carrot's own research across the UK, Ireland, US and Canada found that 85% of women would be more likely to stay with an employer offering comprehensive fertility coverage, and 84% of all respondents said access to multiple fertility options, not just IVF, would make them feel more confident.

The practical employer response is to audit fertility and pregnancy loss policies against the life-course reality the strategy describes, and to make sure benefit partners can support all paths, including the ones that don't start with IVF.

Menstrual health and gynaecological conditions

The renewed strategy treats menstrual problems as a long-underestimated issue with significant workforce consequences. It describes heavy, prolonged or painful periods as a "missed vital sign". In other words, an early warning of conditions including endometriosis, fibroids, adenomyosis and anaemia that, if caught sooner, could prevent years of avoidable suffering.

The NHS will respond with redesigned clinical pathways for heavy periods and uro-gynaecology, a single point of access for gynaecology referrals, community-based neighbourhood women's health services and, within the new NHS Online virtual hospital, dedicated digital pathways for menstrual problems and menopause. Recent ONS analysis cited in the strategy highlights the direct impact of endometriosis on monthly employee pay and employment status, a reminder that this is a workforce issue, not only a clinical one.

For employers, the implications are practical:

• Severe period pain, heavy bleeding and chronic pelvic pain should be treated as legitimate health issues that may need workplace adjustments, not as "personal matters" to be managed quietly.
• Flexible scheduling and remote work options during symptom flares, clear pathways into occupational health, and signposting to specialist care should sit inside an employer's standard wellbeing toolkit.
• Manager training should normalise the language around menstrual health and gynaecological conditions, so that employees can request adjustments without stigma or lengthy explanation.

Menopause in the workplace: from awareness to action

Menopause sits at the intersection of every strand of the new strategy. It is a clinical priority (redesigned NHS pathways, a new NHS Online menopause pathway launching in 2027), a prevention priority (a menopause question added to the routine NHS Health Check this year, to help 5 million women access advice earlier), and an economic priority (workplace support for employees going through perimenopause and menopause).

The strategy connects directly to the Employment Rights Act's menopause provisions. The Equality Action Plan menopause requirement under the Act is expected to outline training, reasonable adjustments, flexible working and access to clinical and mental health support. In practice, an effective Menopause Action Plan goes beyond awareness campaigns to embed day-to-day operational support.

The case for employers is straightforward. Menopause-related symptoms cause days lost, stalled progression and, for some women, early exits from the workforce, often at the exact career stage where leadership representation matters most. Employers that build credible support now, well before the 2027 mandatory threshold, stand to gain a structural advantage in retention, leadership diversity and employer brand.

Carrot has published a Menopause Action Plan content hub, aligned with the requirements under the Employment Rights Act.

Practical next steps for HR and benefits leaders

Map policy to your workforce

The practical work for HR, People and Benefits teams falls into five areas:

1. Audit your current policies: fertility, pregnancy and baby loss, parental leave, flexible working, sickness and absence, and menopause  against the Women's Health Strategy focus areas and the new and upcoming requirements under the Employment Rights Act.
   
   
2. Listen to your workforce: Run surveys or focus groups to understand how menstrual health, fertility journeys, pregnancy loss and menopause are currently affecting people at work, and where support is breaking down. The strategy itself was shaped by over 160,000 women's responses; your own plan should be shaped by yours.
   
   
3. Define your Equality Action Plan and Menopause Action Plan early: Use an evidence-based framework, integrating both policy and clinically led benefits, rather than relying on education-only initiatives. Voluntary plans can be published from Spring 2026; mandatory plans from 2027. Moving early gives you time to measure and iterate.
   
   
4. Review your benefits partners: Ensure they provide clinically governed, UK-aligned support across fertility, pregnancy and menopause, with the data and documentation you can actually use in your Equality and Menopause Action Plans. The regulatory environment in the UK is specific: HFEA licensing for fertility, British Menopause Society recognition for menopause specialists, NICE and NHS clinical guidance. A benefits partner should reflect it.
   
   
5. Train managers and HR teams: to have confident, empathetic conversations about periods, fertility treatment, pregnancy loss and menopause, backed by clear signposting into your policies and benefits ecosystem. Most women who feel unsupported at work say so because of a single conversation with a line manager, not a policy document.
   
   

How Carrot can help: clinically-led support across fertility, family-building and hormonal health

The Renewed Women's Health Strategy sets out an ambition for better access, better information and safer, regulated care for women across the life course. Clinically governed, compliant benefits help employers meet that ambition, without HR teams having to build programmes from scratch.

Carrot UK helps employers support people through fertility, family-building and lifelong hormonal health benefits, including UK menopause benefits, with clinically-led programmes designed for measurable impact on wellbeing, inclusion and retention.

• Our fertility journey covers the full path from preconception and IUI through IVF, fertility preservation and donor conception, delivered through a vetted network of HFEA-licensed clinics.
• Our menopause journey connects UK members to British Menopause Society-recognised specialists and, through our telemedicine partner Medical Prime, to virtual consultations and HRT prescriptions, cutting waits that have historically run to 12 to 18 months down to roughly one month.
• Our parenting and return-to-work support helps new parents navigate the postnatal period, including mental health, feeding and the transition back to work.
• Our dedicated Employment Rights Act hub brings together guidance on Menopause Action Plans, manager training and clinical support, aligned with NHS and NICE guidance.