Domestic abuse and sexual violence against women and girls has soared to ‘epidemic’ levels, Yvette Cooper has warned.
The health secretary told a fringe event at the Labour Party conference that more must be done to tackle the issue with the impact treated as a health matter.
She is expected to set out how she plans to make it a personal priority and task the NHS with helping victims when she delivers her keynote speech to the conference in Liverpool on Wednesday.
Official figures indicate that sexual and domestic violence affect millions of people in Britain, with women disproportionately harmed.
The government published its Freedom from Violence and Abuse strategy last December, with the aim of halving violence against women and girls within a decade.
Speaking at the PLMR Women’s Health Reception, Ms Cooper said: ‘I’m keen for us to do more around the impact of domestic abuse, of sexual violence, and that those should be seen as health issues.
‘And I am here this year as health secretary, last year as foreign secretary, the year before as home secretary.
‘Different jobs, same values, because in each of those jobs, I have highlighted how much we need to do to tackle violence against women and girls.
Health and Social Care Secretary Yvette Cooper at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, pictured in blue blazer.
‘Whether that was the reforms we made around the criminal justice system and policing while I was Home Secretary, and establishing the mission as a cross-government mission, whether it was the work we were doing in the Foreign Office to highlight sexual abuse in conflict, particularly in Sudan, by building a new coalition to work on violence against women and girls internationally, and now in the health department.
‘On Wednesday, as part of my speech, I’ll be setting out our next steps around how we do our part through the NHS and through public health and through the whole way in which we respond to health to make sure that we are also treating this as the epidemic that it really is.’
The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates that 739,000 women experienced sexual assault in a year and 2.2 million experienced domestic abuse.
However, sexual violence remains hugely under-reported, with only a tiny proportion of victims of rape or assault by penetration telling police.
Crimes are most likely to be perpetrated by women’s partners, former partners and other known people.
Professor Subodh Dave, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, told the Daily Mail: ‘We have long been aware of the serious harm that violence and abuse can do to women and girls’ mental health.
‘Tragically, it is not uncommon for female patients to experience long-term abuse that causes serious symptoms, including suicidal ideation or symptoms of psychosis.
‘The Royal College of Psychiatrists has warned for many years that violence and abuse are driving mental illness in women and girls and so we are pleased to hear the Secretary of State is making a commitment to do more in addressing the impacts and look forward to hearing more when she addresses conference later this week, and working with her to make this a reality.’
Ms Cooper also accused the NHS of ‘shocking’ neglect of maternity services as she promised new national standards for maternity care.
The Health Secretary said hospitals had treated services as a ‘parallel world’ and accused bosses of sidelining maternity care while boards focused on waiting lists, with devastating consequences when things went wrong.
Speaking at an IPPR fringe event at Labour Party conference, Ms Cooper said failures in individual hospitals had gone unnoticed by the wider NHS.
‘It just hasn’t been prioritised as an issue overall for the NHS,’ she said.
She said problems had failed to reach hospital boards.
‘The maternity unit and maternity services have just been seen as an add-on for the main hospital.
‘It’s like, oh, there’s a parallel world over there. We don’t really need full oversight of it. We don’t need to follow what’s going on.’
She contrasted that with scrutiny elsewhere, saying ‘the board would be looking at waiting list progress, all of those sorts of things’.
‘But maternity services is seen effectively as a sidebar for the NHS, and I think that’s been really damaging.
‘Just not recognising this is the beginning of a new family’s life. If things go wrong, that has devastating consequences for years to come.’
Her remarks follow a series of NHS maternity scandals and reviews into avoidable harm and deaths of mothers and babies.
