Health and Social Care

Women’s Health Champion – Summer update

August 16, 2024 by Professor Anna Glasier No Comments | Category Women's Health Champion

It does not seem all that long ago that I wrote my last blog and I have been lucky enough to have been away on holiday for three weeks in France in the interim. We know that taking a break an important part of maintaining good mental health and wellbeing, so I hope we all have the opportunity to do so in some shape or form over the summer months.

As you know the Women’s Health Plan was launched in August 2021 with a three year timeframe.

The good news is that it is not going to finish and, actually, nor am I.  The Scottish Government are already starting to consider the next steps  for the Plan beyond August 2024 and I have been invited to continue as the Champion until May 2026 – an invitation which I have gladly accepted so I can continue to drive forward the work I have started and which I hope will make a tangible difference.

With regard to the next phase of the plan, the long-term actions of the first phase will continue, as will the overarching aim of having the health of women underpin all aspects of NHS service delivery and health planning. The Health of Women necessarily spans a huge spectrum of conditions, experiences, treatments and care so we will need to continue to focus our attentions where they are needed most.  There are parts of the plan that we should like to strengthen and one or two areas that we (I) should like to explore further.

Expert Group on Eliminating Cervical Cancer

The first meeting of the Expert Group on Eliminating Cervical Cancer met in April. Unsurprisingly there was a lot of enthusiasm for the work.

We have established three sub-groups, one on HPV vaccination, one on cervical screening (including exploring self-taken swabs for HPV infection) and the third on treatment. I have had very productive discussions with the chairs of the groups and am looking forward to participating  further as their work progresses. While in France I was struck by the large number of posters urging young people to have their HPV vaccination. Uptake has been low in France, only 16% of 16-year-old girls had been vaccinated by 2016 compared with well over 80% in Scotland. But here uptake has fallen since Covid, and we need to understand why this is and how to increase uptake to over 90%.

Expert Group on Abortion Law Review

The Expert Group reviewing the law on abortion will hold its first meeting in August. This expert group represents the first phase of the Scottish Government’s commitment to review the law on abortion to ensure that abortion is seen as first and foremost a healthcare matter. This will be an introductory meeting covering an initial overview of the purpose and overall aims of the review.

Each meeting will be preceded by a meeting of the Advisory Group, which consists of women’s rights organisations, along with a range of other stakeholder engagement,  allowing organisations to feed in their views to the Expert Group. I attended the first meeting of the Advisory group in late June and know that the members of both groups welcome the opportunity to engage with this important work, and I look forward to working with them.

Reducing unintended pregnancy

The annual Termination of Pregnancy Surveillance Report was published at end of May – and, as expected, abortion rates have continued to rise between 2022 and 2023, albeit slightly more slowly than in the previous year.

Rates are increasing faster for women living in the most deprived, compared to least deprived areas, with consequent widening of inequalities. Plus ça change!

Providing good access to longer acting methods of contraception (LARC) is one of the most cost-effective prevention measures available to the health service. We are working closely with the Women’s Health Leads to consider how to address the barriers to LARC as well as the opportunities to increase access and I look forward to working further with them in the coming weeks and months.

Women’s heart health

Working on the Women’s Health Plan gives me an opportunity to work with the next generation of providers which is always stimulating. The subspecialty trainee in SRH in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Dr Helena Young, has helped with developing the guidance documents on contraception for women with heart disease. The NHS Grampian subspecialty SRH trainee, Dr Carrie Hazel, is helping with a review of the relevant HIS standards for LARC provision and abortion care. Dr Varsha Jain, a specialist registrar at the University of Edinburgh gave a very helpful presentation on adenomyosis to the menstrual health clinical network. Varsha is also helping me and Professor Hilary Critchley with some work on understanding the frequency of heavy menstrual bleeding among a student population, a project being master-minded by a final year medical student.

Women’s Health Champion lunchtime seminars

As a plug for the Women’s Health Champion Lunchtime Seminar series, I should like to thank Professor Martha Hickey for her recent presentation on the menopause. Her theme was warning against overmedicalisation of the menopause.

Professor Kaye Wellings will be speaking to us in September on the SACHA (Shaping Abortion for Change) Study which included a large survey of healthcare practitioners to assess the potential for extending their role in abortion provision and a number of interviews with women with recent experience of abortion. This seminar is timely, coming as it does at the start of or work on reviewing the Abortion Law. We hope to arrange a fourth seminar in the series towards the end of the year on the subject of cervical screening.

Menopause Warriors Scotland

Finally, I had a great meeting very recently with Menopause Warriors Scotland, a group which meets monthly in Glasgow to offer support to women struggling with, or simply looking for information about, the menopause. Jacqui and Caroline told us about their work and gave us lots of ideas. We look forward to meeting them again, hopefully in September at one of their events in Govan. In the meantime, I have put them in touch with other Scottish Government policy teams, with Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland and with the Health and Social Care Alliance with the aim of facilitating their work and some of ours.

I hope you all have a great summer.

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