The Women’s Health Plan round up 2023

In 2023 we continued to support the Scottish Government’s Women’s Health Plan with a varied programme of work.

Throughout 2023, we continued to work closely with individuals with lived experience to support their input to the implementation of the Women’s Health Plan. We held quarterly meetings of the Women’s Health Lived Experience Stakeholder Group, where members met with representatives from Scottish Government and NHS Scotland to comment on specific progress areas of the Plan. In September 2023, the Group met with new Women’s Health Champion, Professor Anna Glasier, to share their priorities and stay informed about the work Professor Glasier is directing. Throughout the year, group members contributed to other areas of our programme to highlight their personal priorities and experiences. Some members joined our webinar panels, others participated in focus groups, and some shared their experiences via Humans of Scotland stories and videos.

It was important this year that we promoted a dialogue on women’s health that is evidence-based and provides women with a framework for understanding their own experiences. We did this through hosting several events and publishing a number of resources.

At the beginning of the year, we published our menopause graphic collection which pulled together learning from our 2022 webinar series on menopause. Following last year’s successful webinars, in 2023 we shifted our main focus to menstrual health. We were joined by expert clinicians, academics, third sector partners and lived experience to explore key areas of menstrual health: Periods are normal-but what is a normal period in February, Understanding Endometriosis in March, PCOS Mythbusting in July and ending the year with Everything you need to know about PMS. We also returned to menopause with a webinar in October to mark World Menopause Day. Our webinars were grounded in information from the Women’s Health Hub on NHS Inform and we also published supporting information leaflets which signposted to Inform and other reputable sources.

Recognising that non-digital options for learning are preferred by some women and groups, we initiated our series of community women’s health sessions. Working directly with partners working in local areas, we delivered discussion and information sessions to direct women to support and advice and dispel shame, stigma and silence that may be experienced disproportionately by certain groups on topics of women’s health.

In July 2023, we launched a Conversation Café toolkit for women’s health. The toolkit brings together guidance and resources to support groups, organisations and communities to host independent discussions on women’s health. It recognises that supporting a positive culture on women’s health in society and in our communities is essential for reducing gendered health inequalities.

The toolkit can be used flexibly by groups to help them set up, host and evaluate their own independent Café. Since its launch we have been working with partners to promote the toolkit’s use across Scotland.

In 2023 we connected our programme within a wider landscape of women’s health work happening across Scotland. We were invited to join the Scottish Government’s Women’s Health Leads Network, to share within a forum of good practice. We were also pleased to see the publication of a report into women’s experiences of discrimination and the impact to their health, which we had supported through assisting qualitative engagement. We also worked with Scottish Government, CivTech, NHS AAA and NHS GGC in 2023 to connect lived experience to a new menopause innovation challenge being funded to improve services.

In addition to the delivery of our programme, we continued our input to the strategic delivery of the Plan via the Women’s Health Plan Implementation Group.

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