But women have learned to be cautious with promises framed as efficiency. Digital access only helps if it leads somewhere. Menstrual disorders and suspected endometriosis still require scans, examinations, and often surgery. Menopause support is rarely resolved in a single consultation. A video call can open the door, but it can’t replace specialist capacity that simply doesn’t exist in sufficient numbers. Without parallel investment in clinicians and in-person services, speed risks becoming cosmetic.
There is also the question of who digital care really serves. Access to reliable technology, private space at home, and confidence navigating digital systems is uneven. Older women, disabled women, and those on lower incomes are already more likely to fall through gaps in care. NHS leaders have been careful to stress that the model is intended to be “digital first, not digital only”, but the distinction matters. When systems are stretched, defaults have a habit of becoming mandates.
Medical bodies and advocacy groups have broadly welcomed the prioritisation of women’s health, while issuing familiar cautions. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has called the move a positive step, but warned that digital triage must not become another barrier between women and specialist care. Patient groups have echoed that sentiment, pointing out that faster routes into the system mean little if waiting lists at the other end remain unchanged.
Still, it would be wrong to dismiss the shift outright. There is something meaningful about women’s health being used as the proving ground for one of the NHS’s most ambitious reforms in years. It reflects pressure that has been building steadily — from campaigners, clinicians, and women themselves — to stop treating pain, hormonal disruption and reproductive health as background noise. It also reflects a broader truth: that women’s time, labour and wellbeing have long been undervalued by healthcare systems designed around default male norms.
If the online hospital works, it could quietly change how women experience care. Less waiting. Less friction. A sense that the system is finally designed around real lives rather than ideal patients. If it doesn’t, it risks becoming another sleek layer women are expected to navigate on their own, armed with symptoms, screenshots and patience.
Digital care is not a solution in itself. It is a test. Of whether prioritisation leads to provision. Of whether access turns into treatment. And of whether women’s health is being structurally rethought, or simply re-packaged.
The technology may be new. Women’s scepticism is not.
