Recently, the concept of femtech — short for female technology — has been identified as one of the most innovative and impactful sectors in health and wellness.
This nouveau portmanteau covers a range of medical devices and technology, including period-tracking apps, fertility wearables and menopause-support platforms, and is reshaping the way women engage with their health.
But beyond the buzz, femtech holds deeper value: it must be a core pillar of global health strategies, starting with the UK’s upcoming 10 Year Health Plan.
This will help to ensure a positive female patient experience, dignity and outcomes, driving improvements across the health and social care system.
Femtech’s role in tackling women’s health inequalities in the UK
In the past, clinical research and public health planning avoided focusing on women-only issues and lacked a willingness to engage in wider analyses on conditions that affect mostly women.
Over the years, many critical areas — including menstrual health, endometriosis, menopause, and fertility — have been systematically overlooked and underfunded in medical research. This has had a direct and adverse impact on women’s dignity, experience and outcomes. Femtech seeks to directly address these gaps, offering targeted tools and dynamic solutions for issues that affect millions of women globally.
By capturing real-world, sex-specific data, femtech enables earlier diagnosis, personalised care, and better-informed policies. As digital tools collect insights into cycles, symptoms, and more, there is greater visibility into health trends that have been largely invisible in traditional healthcare systems. All of which should also lead to optimised research and tailored treatments for issues affecting women only, which are often neglected.
Supporting women’s health across every life stage
Recently, femtech has expanded beyond reproductive health, and addresses conditions that are more likely to impact women than men, such as menopause, osteoporosis, cardiovascular risks, and more. Integrated wisely, femtech tools can support women across all stages of life, reduce long-term costs for national health services, and contribute to healthier populations.
For example, the utilisation of femtech tools can help healthcare providers detect serious conditions earlier. This enables patients and clinicians to manage and mitigate issues better through more timely interventions, thereby improving patients’ health and quality of life outcomes.
Early detection measures can also lead to long-term savings in the cost of care as less resource-intense medical interventions are required. Femtech includes a new generation of medical devices the NHS could adopt to improve care delivery and reduce costs. Many femtech devices, such as apps and wearables, can provide real-time health tracking, which allows patients to monitor their own symptoms, identify patterns and decide when a doctor’s visit is truly necessary.
In the UK, the effective introduction of femtech within the NHS would help with the reduction of unnecessary GP or specialist appointments, as well as potentially saving millions in A&E visits and diagnostic overloads, thus easing pressure on already-stretched services. It would also support the new government’s mission of developing a healthcare system that is focused on preventative, rather than reactive, care.
Unleashing femtech’s economic potential
While femtech’s potential health impact is clear, the industry continues to face barriers to growth. Femtech represents a multi-billion-pound market opportunity — yet it remains significantly underfunded.
A survey by CenHERship of over 30 femtech and sexual wellbeing organisations found that over two-thirds had been refused access to investments or were refused an account, while 58% had an account shuttered and more than half faced excessive scrutiny.
The impacts of these barriers were severe: 65% of businesses experienced lost revenue and more than half saw their operational costs increase. These systemic challenges continue to stall the sector’s opportunities to grow and expand the potential to support women.
To realise the full potential of femtech in the UK, targeted femtech funding and strategic investment are urgently needed. An institutional shift toward strategic investment in the sector — via R&D incentives, health innovation hubs, or dedicated funding streams — can help unlock new economic value while advancing female health goals.
Integrating femtech into the NHS 10-Year Plan
As the UK Government works to identify key areas for the 10 Year Health Plan, it is of vital importance that policymakers look to incorporate femtech as a core pillar of care.
While the idea of embedding femtech within NHS has already been mentioned in the 2022 Women’s Health Strategy for England, more can be done to ensure the strategy and long term health plan are successful. One obvious solution is for the Government to support clinical validation, regulation, and scaling of high impact femtech tools, as well as invest in inclusive and accessible digital health platforms and create regulatory pathways that enable innovation without compromising safety.
The takeaway
Femtech is not just niche — it’s the future of women’s health. As the UK looks to reform its health system, integrating femtech at the policy level isn’t just smart healthcare — it’s smart economics, and represents an important step towards gender equity. A future-ready NHS begins with understanding the needs of half the population.
Experts in effecting change
At Whitehouse Communications, we bring deep expertise in health policy consultancy, partnering with organisations across the public, private and third sectors to influence strategy, shape regulation, and drive innovation in healthcare.
Our team understands both the policy landscape and the transformative potential of femtech to improve women’s health outcomes across the UK.
Explore our case studies to learn more about how we’ve helped clients navigate complex policy challenges. If you’re looking for strategic support in health policy and communications, check out our health and social care services.
