At the end of day two, Professor Asma Khalil, Dr Alistair Campbell, Mr Andrew Sizer and Dr Sophie Bracke shared their highlights in the wrap up of the day.

Alistair reflected on the power of patient stories in today's plenary sessions, and how this illustrates the role the College can play in advocating for change.

Thinking ahead to tomorrow, our speakers are looking forward to:

• A session on the National Maternity and Perinatal Audit (NMPA)
• The plenary session on preterm birth, featuring a panel of global experts
• The supporting our doctors session

We'll be sharing updates from our third and final day of RCOG World Congress 2025 here.

We asked delegates what has been their highlight of RCOG World Congress 2025 so far:

Leaders in women’s health took to the RCOG World Congress stage for a discussion on the UK Women’s Health Strategy this morning.

Opening the session, Dame Lesley Regan talked about the good progress achieved since the Strategy’s introduction in 2022, but recognised too many women still face major barriers to good care across their lives. In her rousing remarks, Lesley advocated for a left-shift - building joined- up community solutions for women - with the potential to boost UK productivity by £36bn if we can close the women’s health gap. 

Professor Ranee Thakar shared the College’s ground-breaking work on the gynaecology care crisis, with over 580,000 women in England still waiting too long for hospital care. Ranee reiterated the need for Government focus on immediate and long-term solutions, and urged clinicians to be proactive in understanding their own list data and creating connections between primary and secondary care. 

Dr Sue Mann shared a range of innovative local models now achieving real progress for women, including work in Derby to improve their heavy menstrual bleeding pathway that - if rolled out nationally - would deliver £133-430 million savings annually. As local systems look to join-up women’s health services in the community, and harness digital solutions, Dr Mann emphasised the importance of measuring the right outcomes for women.

Baroness Gillian Merron, Minister for Women’s Health, restated the Government’s welcome manifesto commitment that never again will women’s health be deprioritised, but recognised there remains much to do. This includes ensuring every woman and baby receives safe and compassionate care, through the Government’s newly announced maternity care improvement plans. 

According to Baroness Merron, we “won’t be waiting too long” to see the 10-Year NHS plan. This will see the NHS shifting to a neighbourhood health service model and the Baroness put a strong emphasis on Women’s Health Hubs as part of this.  We welcome her commitment that those ICBs that are not investing in a women’s health hub model will need to explain to the Minister their alternative plan to meet women’s health needs locally.

This afternoon features seven parallel streams running including 'Stump the RCOG Officers', maternity safety and genomics.

Maternity safety

In the maternity safety stream, President Ranee Thakar reminds us how important maternity safety is in the UK, but also in international settings - and there are many lessons international delegates can apply in their own countries.

Shakila Thangaratnam discussed maternal mortality, what’s happening across the UK and the pinch points where things need to be addressed.

They did a systematic review on all UK-based confidential enquiries (like those by MBRRACE-UK) to understand patterns in maternal deaths. They mapped maternal deaths against six main categories:

Equipment or technology
Processes/care pathway
Human factors
Policies procedures
Environment
System

Most maternal deaths were caused by human factors (39%) - this includes experience and expertise, training and education, communication skills and staffing pressures.

Dr Lauren Ramsey finished the maternity safety stream with a presentation about restorative learning from healthcare harm, sharing findings from the NIHR-funded Learn Together programme.

Restorative learning is an approach which balances the need for organisational learning alongside reducing the likelihood of compounded harm for families, involving them directly in the process of learning from a safety incident.

‘Families have a unique perspective and valuable perspective about patient safety.’ Find out more about the Learn Together programme.

Stump the RCOG Officers

Genomics stream

Genomics is changing medical practice through diagnosis and specialised careers in every specialty, not just O&G. Technology to examine DNA has accelerated over the last 15 years.

These technological advances are shaping clinical diagnosis and prognostic information enabling personalised, precision medicine for women’s health.

Peter Brodie set up the RCOG Genomic Taskforce in 2019. The RCOG now has a Genomics Standing Committee responsible for establishing and promoting genomics expertise.

It advises the RCOG on fostering this expertise, guiding the development of strategies to educate the RCOG membership about genomics and provides advice on genomics-related matters.

The RCOG is committed to ensuring that all members of our profession receive the appropriate level of education in genomics. This is why we have established the RCOG Genomics Standing Committee and a genomics hub on our website, providing a range of resources for those interested in how genomics relates to our specialty.

This afternoon's first plenary session is 'When healthcare collapses' with Dr Deborah Harrington, consultant in obstetrics and maternal and fetal medicine at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Dr Harrington shares powerful insights from her time in Gaza and the realities of delivering care in conflict zones. She highlights safe water, food security, human security, housing, work, education, and healthcare are all important determinants of health, and without the first three in particular, it is impossible to have good public health.

“Safe water, food security, human security, housing, work, education, and healthcare — they are all important determinants of health, and without the first three in particular, it’s absolutely impossible to have a good public health.”

Checking in with our delegates over the lunch break to hear their thoughts on day two of #RCOG2025

During the lunch break, RCOG President Ranee Thakar chaired a session about bridging the gap in postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) care.

In this session, RCOG Chief Executive Kate Lancaster and representatives from the NHS Race and Health Observatory (RHO), Institute of Health Improvement (IHI), and NHS England presented plans for a targeted initiative aimed at addressing inequalities in PPH across England. The initiative will employ a bundle approach, combining the RHO’s anti-racism principles with Improvement Science as the core implementation framework.

That’s the morning of day two wrapped up, with our delegates taking a break for lunch!

Hear from F2 doctor Sapphire about the innovations she is looking forward to in O&G

After a thought-provoking plenary, the morning sessions are underway.

In the women's health strategy stream, former RCOG President Dame Lesley Regan shared progress on the Women's Health Strategy for England, and the UK Government's plans to support and improve women's health.

Professor Ranee Thakar shared insights from the RCOG's work to address waiting times in gynaecology. Our findings and recommendations are outlined in our Waiting For a Way Forward report, published in November last year.

In the innovation stream, Professor Andrew Weeks highlighted that one of the biggest challenges in clinical entrepreneurship is helping people decide which ideas to pursue, and how to move them forward without burning out.

RCOG CEO Kate Lancaster shared an update on the College's efforts to support innovation in women's health.

Kate highlighted that one of the key priorities in women's health innovation is around equity and access.

The first plenary session of the day is a panel discussion on the horrible reality of obstetric fistula.

Obstetric fistula is a serious complication of childbirth, resulting in painful injury and sometimes disability.

It is estimated that more than 2 million young women live with untreated obstetric fistula in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

The session explored doctors' roles in tackling the ongoing prevalence and incidence of fistula, both in terms of prevention and treatment. Panel members shared first-hand what is needed from their country perspectives and globally to galvanise action to end obstetric fistula.

They highlighted the need for urgent action to scale up collective efforts and build stronger partnerships.

It was a fantastic first day at RCOG World Congress 2025, with 60+ organisations supporting our flagship event.

After starting off with an inspiring welcome address from President Ranee Thakar and an important announcement from Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting, speakers from across the world presented the latest innovations and best practice in women’s healthcare. Across 7 parallel streams, our global experts shared key insights on a range of topics including inequalities in healthcare, clinical entrepreneurship and uterine transplantation

Today’s programme started with early clinical sessions led by our International Representative Committees (IRCs), with key insights from our members in Greece, Jordan, India, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt.

RCOG IRCs support the global work of the College by developing a strong local network in country for RCOG Fellows, Members and Associates. IRCs consist of international College members resident and working in the country of the IRC, who wish to support development of women’s healthcare in that region.

Welcome to day two of RCOG World Congress 2025!

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Don't forget to share your highlights from Congress on social media using #RCOG2025!

Catch up on day one here.