Hayley Locksley was eleven when her periods began, and with them came a pain that would shape the next three decades of her life. She remembers spending entire months in the school sick room, occasionally passing out, only to be told by doctors to take paracetamol. It would be thirteen years before she received a diagnosis: endometriosis, a condition where tissue similar to the uterine lining grows outside the womb, affecting one in ten women in the UK.
Last October, at the age of 40, Hayley lost her job as a special needs teaching assistant in a primary school in Shefford, Bedfordshire. After four years in a role she describes as her dream, she was placed under review when her sickness absence increased. The outcome was blunt: she was told she was unfit to work.
“I didn’t want to give up my career but my health meant I could no longer continue,” she says. “I now use a walking stick, experience severe back and leg pain, and have fallen numerous times. Losing my job has been so tough for my mental health.”
A hidden crisis in the workplace
Hayley’s story is far from isolated. A new report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Endometriosis, based on evidence from more than 6,000 women, lays bare the scale of the crisis. The inquiry found that 97 per cent of respondents had worked while in severe pain. Nearly half — 47 per cent — had lost income because of their symptoms, and 28 per cent had left a job altogether.
Endometriosis surgeon Dr Rebecca Mallick describes the figures as shocking, though not surprising. “Women should not have to choose between their health and their careers,” she says. “We have raised awareness for years. Now we need meaningful action.”
The condition’s trajectory can be ruthless. Carla Cressy, 35, from Essex, worked as a model from the age of five until she was seventeen, collapsing repeatedly on shoots. She retrained as a self-employed beauty therapist, but a decade passed before she received a diagnosis. By then, untreated endometriosis had progressed to frozen pelvis disease, destroying her reproductive organs and leaving her requiring bladder reconstruction and a total hysterectomy.
Carla now runs The Endometriosis Foundation and was made an OBE this year for her advocacy. She gave evidence to the inquiry. “Having experienced first hand the impact endometriosis can have on your working life, I know just how difficult it can be,” she says. “And these are things we hear about from our community every single day. People struggling to stay in work, taking time off for treatment, losing income and sometimes having to give up careers they’ve worked incredibly hard for.”
The probation trap and the cost of disbelief
Faye Ramsey, 32, from Ipswich, spent a decade in agony before being diagnosed last year. Doctors had suggested irritable bowel syndrome. She underwent a hysterectomy and excision surgery in June but found returning to her role as a teaching assistant mentally and physically overwhelming.
Through Girls Anatomy, the support organisation she founded, Faye has met women who have lost jobs, had hours reduced, or been physically sick at work after “dragging themselves in… because they don’t want to lose their jobs.” She also gave evidence to the APPG inquiry.
“It’s not pleasant to try and fight for your job and justify why you’re the way that you are and why you’re having that time off,” she says. Faye is calling for more endometriosis-friendly recognised employers and better protection for women during probation periods. “Your absence policy shouldn’t be the same as someone who is able-bodied and has no medical condition. You shouldn’t be judged against that person because it’s just not fair.”
Hayley echoes this. In her previous nursery role, she says employers questioned whether her symptoms were real and asked her to use annual leave to cover sick days. When she moved to office work after surgery, colleagues questioned why she spent so long in the toilet.
“I had to explain that my bladder sometimes did not empty fully, causing severe pain and horrendous diarrhoea,” she says. “I found the questioning embarrassing and humiliating.”
Employers ‘increasingly aware’ but action lags
The inquiry also surveyed 250 employers. Seventy-two per cent said their organisation gives no training or guidance on women’s health. Ninety-four per cent of women surveyed said their employers lacked a good understanding of endometriosis, and half received no workplace adjustments.
Matthew Percival, the Confederation of British Industry’s future of work and skills director, acknowledges a shift. “Businesses are increasingly aware of women’s health issues,” he says. Firms are keen to explore how they can support women “without their careers being held back,” part of a “wider shift” towards improving health and wellbeing in the workplace.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson agreed the condition can have a “devastating impact” on women’s lives, adding that the inquiry’s findings highlight the need for better support in both healthcare and the workplace.
Why it Matters
Behind every statistic in this report lies a woman who has been forced to choose between her livelihood and her body — a choice no one should have to make. Endometriosis is not a niche condition; it affects 1.5 million people in the UK, yet the workplace remains largely unequipped to accommodate it. The loss of talent, experience, and economic contribution is staggering, but the human cost — the erosion of dignity, the financial precarity, the grief of a career abandoned — is immeasurable. Until employers move beyond awareness into structural change — flexible policies, specialist training, and a culture of belief — women like Hayley, Carla, and Faye will continue to pay the price for a system that refuses to see their pain.
