Health and Social Care

Women’s Health Champion: winter update

March 25, 2026 by Professor Anna Glasier No Comments | Category Women's Health Champion

It is a while since my last blog, but a lot has been happening in the last few months, not least publication of Phase Two of the Women’s Health Plan so what follows is a report of some – though by no means all – of the things that I have been up to.

Phase Two of the Women’s Health Plan

Phase Two of the plan was published in January this year (Women’s Health Plan: Phase Two (2026 – 2029) – gov.scot) following much consultation and a great deal of work by the Women’s Health Policy Team. A particular effort was made to hear from not just clinicians, people working in other policy areas, third sector partners and academics but from women and girls themselves and particularly from women whose voices are seldom heard. The Team is very grateful to the organisations that helped us with this exercise particularly Age Scotland, the British Heart Foundation, The Simon Community, Young Scot and CEMVO Scotland. As ever we also relied heavily on help from the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland and the Women’s Health Lived Experience Stakeholder Group, who were generous with their time and views. I would like to thank them and indeed everyone who supported the development of Phase Two – it is much appreciated.

I believe that Phase Two has been well received. Many women – myself included – were particularly pleased to see an additional focus on older women and on brain health. Phase Two is not a new plan but continues, and builds on, the work started in Phase One. One of our new priority areas is the transformation of the way gynaecology services are delivered. I spoke of our thinking behind this in an earlier blog but hope that we can make some progress in 2026.

Phase Two includes a new programme on Brain Health, and I was delighted to visit Alzheimer Scotland’s new offices in Edinburgh and to hear more about Brain Health Scotland. During the development of Phase Two, women told us they would like to know more and do more about their Brain Health, so I think there is the opportunity for some interesting collaboration in this area.

I include a photo with Babs the Brain, from the Alzheimer Scotland conference last year.

Abortion

The independent Expert Group report reviewing the law on abortion was published in November 2025 (Abortion Law Review – gov.scot). I chaired this Expert Group, and the publication of our report is an important milestone for the review of the law on abortion. But there is still lots of work to be done by the Scottish Government.

A few of our recommendations received some media attention. For anyone interested in the Expert Group’s thinking, it is important to read the report itself, where we set out in great detail how we arrived at our conclusions. The report is extensive and the Group took considerable care, and time (we met every month for a year), to make sure that a substantial amount of research, stakeholder input, and deliberation underpinned our recommendations. I would strongly encourage anyone who wishes to understand any of the issues covered to read the full report, as it provides the necessary context that cannot be captured through media coverage alone.

I attended a meeting of lawyers, academics, clinicians and advocates in London in late February to present the recommendations of the Expert Group in the context of moving forward with abortion law reform in England.

The Scottish Government is now considering our recommendations thoroughly and taking forward engagement with a wide range of stakeholders. The Expert Group, and I, are hoping that progress will continue to be made on considering abortion law reform for Scotland.

Eliminating Cervical Cancer

The Expert Group report on Eliminating Cervical Cancer in Scotland was published in December 2025. (Cervical Cancer Elimination in Scotland Expert Group Final Report – gov.scot) The report sets out what will be needed to eliminate Cervical Cancer across the whole population in Scotland by 2040.

We know that this will be extremely difficult in the face of falling rates of HPV vaccination uptake and, more noticeably, cervical screening. However, if we settle for saying that we will eliminate cervical cancer in Scotland around the year 2055 (the date one of the mathematical models suggests) we will probably not do it until 2060, while if we aim for 2040, perhaps we will succeed by 2045. The recommendations in the report have been turned into an Action Plan, published on 25 March. The actions will involve a great many organisations and so I hope that a ministerially-led implementation group will be established to ensure that momentum is not lost.

In February I, and others involved with the Cervical Cancer Elimination project, attended a very useful meeting, hosted by the Royal Society of Edinburgh entitled ‘Eliminating Cervical Cancer – a task of reaching ‘the missing’. Among a number of excellent presentations we heard of some very useful initiatives on engaging homeless people, BME groups and women living with disabilities.

Visits to NHS Boards

I visited the Women’s Health Teams in Tayside and the Borders before Christmas, and it was great to see the enthusiasm and innovation happening in different parts of the country.

In January, we launched Phase Two of the Women’s Health Plan at a Women’s Health Community Appointment Day (CAD) in Aberdeen. It was a fantastic event and I hope we will see more of these CADs for women’s health in other parts of the country.  In February, I accompanied the Minister for Women’s Health on a visit to NHS Ayrshire and Arran.

Meeting the Women’s Health Leads and the teams they work with is always extremely valuable quite apart from the fact that it is a pleasure to meet people face to face rather than on the screen.

We discuss local challenges but also examples of innovation and good practice which we can talk about when we visit other Boards.

At our visit to NHS Tayside, in Dundee, we had some very useful discussions about pelvic floor health and discussed their initiatives to reduce waiting times for urogynaecology.  In the Borders we talked about women’s health in primary care settings and also discussed physical activity and young women.  In Aberdeen, we met with a lot of third sector organisations and clinical teams providing women’s health services locally in imaginative ways.

And in Crosshouse, while the Minister watched a robotic hysterectomy, I had a very useful catch up with the Women’s Health Team. We spoke about the Women’s Health Academy and the training for pharmacists working in Sexual Health and discussed a proposed study to explore the journey of women with endometriosis from first presenting to primary care to being seen in secondary care.

I visited the Chalmers Centre in Lothian on two occasions, once with the Minister for Women’s Health and again with Christine McLaughlin, the Chief Operating Officer, to demonstrate to them the potential of Reproductive Health Services to provide a one stop shop for medical gynaecology referrals to secondary care – with the long-term transformation of gynaecology services in mind.

In the summer of 2025, we started to undertake some work in prisons recognising that women in custody often experience significant health inequalities, including lower engagement with preventive services such as cervical screening. I wanted to understand how cervical screening is/could be delivered within prison settings in Scotland, with the aim of improving cervical screening uptake in this population.

The team and I, along with Dr Lisa Adams a Public Health Registrar undertaking an attachment to the policy team, visited Polmont and Stirling Prisons to meet with the clinical staff delivering sexual health services to the female population. I was extremely impressed with their efforts to engage with the women and fascinated to learn just how challenging it can be to deliver health services within a prison setting.

I visited HMP Stirling again this month with the policy team to speak with the women living there. More than 20 women and several staff joined a session on cervical cancer, screening and vaccination. It was a lively event and the discussion ranged widely, with women asking thoughtful and sometimes challenging questions. It was clear how much they valued the chance to talk openly about their health, and it even led to one woman who was over ten years overdue choosing to be screened that afternoon.

Lisa has taken the work forward with the aim of increasing cervical screening uptake among eligible women in every prison in Scotland. This is a complex but very rewarding piece of work, and I should like to congratulate Lisa on how well the project is going.

Research

The Women’s Health Research Fund was launched on 20^th January – submission deadline is 22^nd April. We hope to receive lots of exciting, innovative proposals focussing on;

• Menstrual & gynaecological health
• Menopause
• Pelvic floor health
• Healthy ageing and long-term conditions, for example cardiovascular health and bone health

In addition, a group of researchers at the University of Edinburgh has suggested establishing a Health of Women Scottish Research Network aiming to bring together researchers and clinicians across Scotland to:

• Promote collaboration across disciplines and institutions.
• Align with, and help shape, Scottish Government priorities on women’s health.
• Support joint research funding bids, workshops, and policy engagement.

The scope will be deliberately broad – encompassing women’s health across the life course, not limited to reproductive health – and responsive to emerging priorities such as mental health, metabolic health, bone and brain health, cardiovascular risk, and rare or under-researched conditions.

An invitation was sent to a wide range of people known to be involved in relevant research in Scotland and over 195 people responded. Next steps will involve mapping the community: to help identify thematic clusters and potential collaborations. The plan is to host a series of online and in-person workshops throughout 2026, each centred on specific themes.

The first focus will be women and dementia, linking hormonal health, menopause, and cognitive function. We will organise a workshop on the topic in the early summer. Over the coming months, a simple web presence (directory, themes, and short vignettes of ongoing research) and a social media channel will be established to share updates and opportunities.

If you are interested in joining the network or are interested in the proposed workshop on dementia contact Murray.Britton@ed.ac.uk

The Women’s Health Team collaborates with various academics around Scotland including public health trainees, masters students and even undergraduates undertaking well- designed projects which help inform policy.  We recently heard presentations from Mary Bartlett Searle on an evaluation of NHS Lothian workplace policy on menopause and menstrual health, and from Lucy Brennan exploring experiences of menopause and access to menopause care in Scotland.

Professor Sharon Cameron in Lothian working with Gina Bonar, a student from Strathclyde University undertook a study entitled Human papillomavirus vaccination and cervical screening uptake among women presenting for abortion: exploring opportunities for health care interventions. Gina showed that among 297 women aged ≤25 years 12.5% were unvaccinated and 33.3% had no record of vaccination status. Among 501 women >25 years, 14% were overdue for cervical screening and 28.3% had never been screened.

Scottish Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce

This Taskforce was established in January 2026 to promote continuous, evidence-informed improvement in maternity and neonatal care, and pregnancy and birth outcomes. It is chaired by the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health and I was asked to act as co-vice chair alongside Ann Gow, Deputy Chief Executive of HIS. By the end of March we will have had three meetings. We have focussed on agreeing the priorities and membership of the Taskforce, how it will operate and how it will achieve its aim of determining the scope of a review of maternity services. It is a very long time since I did any obstetrics, and it is fascinating to see how the landscape of maternity care has changed. I look forward to continuing to work with this dedicated group to improve care for women and their families.

That’s it for this blog post. I should like to take this opportunity to thank Ms Minto, the Minister for Women’s Health, for her support and enthusiasm for the Plan and for me personally.

Life as the Women’s Health Champion has been particularly busy in recent months – and as enjoyable and interesting as ever. I imagine it may calm down over the next few weeks while we await the result of the election. In anticipation I am going hill walking for a week in the Spanish Pyrenees at the beginning of May – having cast my postal vote before leaving.

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