GovWire

In 2021, Public Health England (PHE), which was previously an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), commissioned the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) to develop and pilot a new Womens Reproductive Health Survey (WRHS) tool.

The resulting WRHS national pilot was delivered online between 1 July and 17 August 2021 to women in England aged 16 to 54 years old. The pilot received over 13,450 responses.

The survey was designed to capture womens experiences of reproductive health and patterns of service user, and identify disparities in access and outcomes. Questions in the survey covered themes on:

• menstrual health, from menarche to menopause
• preventing and planning pregnancy, including abortions
• pregnancy experiences and intentions (which usually affects women between ages 16 to 54)

The analysis and report of the national pilot is focused on key findings on contraception and abortion. We do not plan to analyse themes on the other topics from the pilot as the data set has been superseded by the main Womens Reproductive Health Survey 2023, which received over 59,332 responses. LSHTM published theirheadline findings from the WRHS 2023 on 17 October 2024.

Publication of the analysis and report of the WRHS 2021 national pilot was delayed due to a combination of factors including the transition of work on the survey from PHE (on its closure) to DHSC and its assimilation into DHSCs broader work programme.