Women's health plan: interim progress update 2023

Cross-cutting actions

Scotland’s Women’s Health Champion

• The Women’s Health Champion, Professor Anna Glasier OBE, was appointed in January 2023. In the months since her appointment, Professor Glasier has met with stakeholders and partners from across Scotland in order to identify good practice and innovation as well as understand areas of greatest challenge across Women’s Health.
• Professor Glasier is publishing quarterly blogs on her progress as Women’s Health Champion, the first two of which can be found here. In her second blog, she describes the two particular initiatives she’s going to be focussing on in the coming months:
  • “”After five months of meetings, I now have a clearer idea of two particular initiatives that I would like to take forward …. Following discussions with representatives of the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Scottish Deep End Project we are working on a proposal for a pilot study involving taking a specialist Women’s Health Service to a number of Deep End Practices. The service would offer all aspects of sexual and reproductive health care but also use the opportunity to assess risk factors for cardiovascular disease and take action accordingly. This project would need to be done in an affordable and sustainable way such that scaling up across all Deep End practices would be realistic and, to this end, the processes and outcomes would need to be very carefully evaluated.

    My second initiative concerns contraception and the prevention of unintended pregnancy. It has been suggested that the rise in abortion rates in young women in Scotland may be due, in part, to young women’s lack of confidence in hormonal contraception in favour of other approaches … The findings from the recent Scottish Government publication on women’s experiences of discrimination and the impact on health and the Young Women’s Movement report on experiences of accessing healthcare echo young women’s concerns about hormonal contraception. I’m keen to explore this further with young women, to understand their concerns and think about the ways in which we can support them. “”

You can read more in Professor Glasier’s Blog.

Women’s Health Leads

One of the key medium term actions in the Women’s Health Plan is to have a Women’s Health Lead in every NHS Board, to drive change, share best practice and innovation.

• There is now a Women’s Health Lead in nearly every Board. The Leads meet on a quarterly basis through the ‘Women’s Health Leads Network’, chaired by Professor Glasier.
• The Network brings NHS Boards together to discuss areas of learning and challenge across Scotland and consider where practice can be shared and common issues addressed, highlight progress and achievements, and develop a ‘Once for Scotland’ approach.
• The Scotland-wide challenges in women accessing longer acting reversible methods of contraception (LARC) have been a particular focus for the network and led to the establishing of the LARC Short Life Working Group.

Women’s Health Plan Knowledge Hub and wider resources

• The Women’s Health Plan Knowledge Hub (‘KHub’), created for stakeholders involved in the delivery and implementation of the Women’s Health Plan, continues to be used to share examples of best practice and facilitate discussions on improvements in women’s health, across all sectors.
• Work is ongoing to facilitate the sharing of good practice across networks, including the NHS Women’s Health Leads Network and National Menopause Specialists Network where examples of innovative practice across primary and secondary care are regularly shared.

NHS Inform Women’s Health Platform

As highlighted in the Report on Progress, the NHS Inform Women’s Health Platform was launched in May 2022, to help improve access to comprehensive and accurate information about women’s health. Since the January report, we have continued to develop this valuable resource.

• Pelvic Health: We have added new content explaining the pelvic floor and its function, advice on pelvic floor exercises, urinary continence and pelvic organ prolapse. The content is focussed on prevention alongside advice on care and support for those experiencing symptoms.

  Spotlight on: New Pelvic floor Animation

  Pelvic floor muscles play an important role in our bodies but for many women where they are and what exactly they do is a bit of a mystery.

  We know that life events, like pregnancy and childbirth, can impact pelvic floor muscles and their ability to control bladder and bowel function effectively so it’s particularly important for women to understand their anatomy.

  A new animation has been developed and aims to empower women by showing where the pelvic floor is in the body, the function of the pelvic floor muscles and why it’s important that we exercise them just like any other muscle in our bodies. This short, simple and easy to understand animation will sit alongside content explaining the ‘how to’ of pelvic floor exercises facilitating a preventative approach to pelvic health and giving clear advice to those who may already be experiencing symptoms.

• Lipoedema: A new page has been added on Lipoedema, a long term condition which is significantly more common in women. The page includes information on the symptoms, self-management and treatment options for lipoedema as well as sign posting to organisations like ‘Talk Lipoedema’ for more help, advice and peer support.
• Sharing resources: We have also ensured we make the excellent resources from other key organisations available on NHS Inform. This has included an animation on Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and short films on contraception options and fibroids. We also linked with Ready Steady Baby! to include a short animation on post-partum contraception.

Lived Experience

The Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE) has continued to support the Plan through their dedicated lived experience programme.

• Following popular engagement on menopause in 2022, a menstrual health workplan is currently being delivered, to ensure that women have access to comprehensive information and resources to support their menstrual health journey and dispel myths and stigma. This has included several webinars exploring periods and menstrual health related conditions, such as endometriosis and polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). A supporting leaflet on menstrual health can be found here. Positive feedback was received by those who attended the menstrual health webinar:

  “I learnt more about the subject area, made me feel more confident in understanding my own menstrual health”

  “I now feel that I have a wider understanding of when a period is not normal and can educate others on when to seek further advice”

  “The lived experience really made me appreciate a different perspective from my own period history and about how we better support people”

• The ALLIANCE has also been working in partnership with organisations, local authorities and community groups to build a series of community sessions for in-person signposting and discussion on women’s health.

  

• Empowering women with information and encouraging positive attitudes to women’s health experiences remain key priorities. To support this, the ALLIANCE has produced a toolkit for delivering Conversation Cafes on women’s health. The toolkit brings together resources and guidance to set up supportive conversation spaces, facilitate informed discussion with women and build peer support networks.
• The ALLIANCE has continued to ensure that women’s experiences sit alongside the delivery of the Plan, including through the Women’s Health Plan Lived Experience Stakeholder Group. A number of women have also been supported to share their story and raise awareness of their health condition or journeys. For some, this has been through involvement in a series of short online videos highlighting lived experience of menstrual health related conditions such as fibroids.