By Smantha Jones
The major investment via the NIHR into research on women’s health issues is injecting over £500m to address the wide disparities women face in terms of health issues, in a step that shows the Uk government’s seriousness in addressing the important issues women face.
The Department Of Health deserves to be applauded for this important and worthwhile investment.
The investment and its overall aim is broad and wide ranging, and will go a long way to alleviate the many issues they face. It will include a new policy research unit on reproductive health, which will address data gaps and identify barriers to women participating in research.
Banning Virginity Testing
Under the new plans, virginity testing and hymenoplasty in the UK will be banned through the Health and Care Act 2022. Virginity testing and hymenoplasty are forms of violence against women and girls, and such practices will not be tolerated in the UK. A virginity test is the practice and process of determining whether a girl or woman is a virgin in order to determine that she has never engaged in
It will enhance women’s reproductive wellbeing in the workplace through the Health and Wellbeing Fund 2022 to 2025. The fund supports voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations to expand and develop projects to support women experiencing reproductive health issues – such as pregnancy loss or menopause – to remain in or return to the workplace, banning the availability of ‘Botox’ and cosmetic fillers to under-18s for cosmetic purposes and banning adverts for cosmetic surgery that target under-18s.
The large investment comprises wide investment directed at addressing the issue.
It will include £302 million in family hubs and the Start for Life programme, including the creation of a network of family hubs in 75 upper-tier local authorities across England, including bespoke parent-infant relationship and perinatal mental health support, and the establishment of breastfeeding support services, providing protections to the millions of people who experience domestic abuse through the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.
The project will ensure the abolishing of the tampon tax, removing VAT from women’s sanitary products, and rolling out free sanitary products in schools, colleges and hospitals, and introducing the Online Safety Bill to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. The bill will restrict exposure to legal but harmful content, such as exposure to self-harm, harassment and eating disorders content.
It is also aimed at improving the quality of data collected by the NHS – this will include running a new reproductive health experience survey every 2 years to continue to listen to women and gather insight on their experiences of services, including for contraception and menopause.
The enhancement of understanding through training and tackling the root causes of why women’s voices are not always listened to, both women and clinicians should feel empowered to have more informed discussions over their care.
Chief Scientific Advisor at the Department of Health and Social Care and Chief Executive Officer of the NIHR Lucy Chappell said:
The gender health gap stems from a range of factors. Over the years, we have seen less research into health conditions that affect women and this gender data gap has had a significant contribution on the impact of such research.
The NIHR has made good progress in this area, from increased research on conditions such as endometriosis to boosting participation of women in trials and supporting female researchers.
The publication of this strategy builds on that progress, and will help ensure women’s voices and priorities are at the heart of research.
The publication of the strategy is the latest action taken by the government to address the issues and disparities many women face. This includes appointing the first ever Women’s Health Ambassador for England earlier this year, the creation of a network of family hubs in 75 upper-tier local authorities across England, and providing protections to the millions of people who experience domestic abuse through the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.
Hormone Replacement Therapy
”We have also taken action to increase access to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and reduce costs of this medication. The creation of a prepayment certificate will mean women can access HRT on a month-by-month basis if need be, easing pressure on supply, paying a one-off charge equivalent to 2 single prescription charges (currently £18.70) for all their HRT prescriptions for a year. This system will be implemented by April 2023.
In order to ensure women can reliably access HRT, decisive action has been taken, including the appointment of Madelaine McTernan as chair of the HRT Supply Taskforce, and issuing of serious shortage protocols to even out distribution and provide greater flexibility to allow community pharmacists to supply specified alternatives, where appropriate.
The government has already been taking action to begin to address the issues and disparities women face, including, establishing a Maternity Disparities Taskforce to tackle disparities in outcomes and experiences of care for women and babies by improving access to pre-conception and maternity care for women from ethnic minorities and those living in the most deprived areas investing £127 million to increase and support the maternity NHS workforce and to increase neonatal care capacity over the next year.
This is on top of £95 million investment into recruitment of an additional 1,200 midwives and 100 consultant obstetricians establishing the UK Menopause Taskforce to drive forward the work on improving healthcare support for women and raising levels of awareness in the population and among healthcare professionals to encourage workplace support.
It will also consider where further research is needed to address gaps in the evidence base
reducing the cost of and improving access to HRT by identifying ways to support the HRT supply chain and addressing shortages some women face on a limited number of products, and by reducing the cost of HRT though a new bespoke HRT prepayment certificate, which we will introduce by April 2023.