The Victorian Women's Pain Standard, published on 11 September 2026, says that women, girls and gender diverse people should be taken seriously and believed when they talk about pain. Women's Health in the South East is asking one thing of what comes next: name how the Standard will be measured, and build that answer in partnership with the services already doing the work.
"Being believed is not a personality trait or a stroke of luck. It is something a health system either designs in or leaves out," said WHISE Chief Executive Officer Kit McMahon.
"The Standard says plainly that it should be designed in. That is a real change, and it was written with clinicians, experts and women who have lived with pain."
The Standard responds to the Inquiry into Women's Pain and was published on the final day of Women's Health Week. Of the more than 13,000 people who contributed to the Inquiry, 71% said they felt dismissed by health professionals and 53% had a delayed diagnosis. The Inquiry did not find a workforce that does not care. It found appointment lengths, referral pathways and training that produced the same result regardless, and each of those was designed by someone, which means each can be designed differently.
Women's Health in the South East (WHISE) is the regional women's health service for Victoria's Southern Metropolitan Region, working across ten local government areas and 1.56 million people.
The Inquiry is being written into how services plan
Responding to the Inquiry is now part of what health services set out in their planning. For months WHISE has worked alongside local health services across the region on that response, going through what would change in a clinic, on a ward and at a triage desk so that a woman is believed the first time she reports pain.
"Putting the Inquiry into service planning is what got everyone into the room, and that was the right call," Ms McMahon said.
"What has happened in the room has been better than a requirement could ask for. Nobody is ticking a box. They are asking what would actually change for a woman at a triage desk, which is a harder question.
"There has been a lot to be encouraged by. Women came together and told the truth about their care, people with power listened, and now the services are leaning in. The most encouraging day is still ahead of us, the one where a woman does not have to think about any of this because the care is simply equitable."
WHISE gathered the lived experience of more than 120 women and gender diverse people for the Inquiry, with Afri-Aus Care and Wellsprings for Women. The Inquiry's recommendations have been publicly supported from both sides of the Victorian Parliament, which gives this work a good chance of outlasting a term.
What turns a standard into care
Three things would complete it: clarity on who holds responsibility for the four principles, what clinical education supports them in practice, and how women's accounts of their own care feed back in.
The Standard is published alongside a guide for women on talking to healthcare professionals about their pain, which is carefully made and women will use. Clinicians, services and health agencies are well placed to champion what comes next, implementing the Standard in training, credentialling and the review of care, and leading the companion resource addressed to their own workforce.
"We would like to help build that, and we are already doing a version of it here," Ms McMahon said.
"Name how the Standard will be measured, and build that answer in partnership with the services already doing the work."
"A woman walking into an appointment in Frankston or Dandenong should be able to expect a good one rather than hope for it. Agreeing how we will know it is happening is the last piece, and it is the most achievable part of all of this."
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