Patricia Hope Hewitt was born on 2 December 1948 in Canberra, Australia, the daughter of Cyrus Lenox Simson Hewitt and Alison Hope Hewitt (née Tillyard). She was educated at the Church of England Girls’ Grammar School, Canberra; the Australian National University; and Newnham College, Cambridge. She married David Julian Gibson-Watt in 1970 (divorced 1978) and William Jack Birtles in 1981 (died 2020), with whom she has two children.

She worked as a public relations officer for Age Concern, 1971-3, and as women's rights officer and later general secretary at the National Council for Civil Liberties, 1973-83. She was an unsuccessful Labour Party prospective parliamentary candidate in Leicester East in 1983. She then became press secretary, 1983-8, and policy co-ordinator, 1988-9, to the Leader of the Opposition, Neil Kinnock. She was deputy director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, 1989-94, and head of research at Andersen Consulting, 1994-7. In 1997, she was elected Labour MP for Leicester West and represented the constituency, 1997-2010.

She was appointed Economic Secretary to the Treasury, 1998-9, and Minister of State at the Department of Trade and Industry, 1999-2001. She became Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Minister for Women, 2001-5, and Health Secretary, 2005-7. In 2007, she returned to the backbenches and she left the House of Commons at the general election in 2010.

She was awarded a damehood in 2025.