Women's Health Plan: Phase Two (2026 - 2029)

Introduction by the Women’s Health Champion and Co-Chair of the Women’s Health Plan Short Life Working Group

I was extremely proud to take up the post of Women’s Health Champion for Scotland at the end of January 2023. I was honoured to have been asked, excited by the thought of the challenge and I have not lost any enthusiasm for the task over the last two years.

Although involved in all aspects of the Women’s Health Plan from the outset, I prioritised work on menstrual health and menopause, contraception and abortion and heart health. Looking back over the last three years I believe that we have made progress in all these areas, but the work is not finished and will continue into Phase Two of the Plan. The Women’s Heath Plan Team, with help from our stakeholder groups, has worked hard to make good quality information about both menstrual health and menopause available on NHS Inform. Recent surveys have shown that many women in the UK feel ill-informed about the menopause and don’t know where to find reliable information. I hope that in time to come they will turn to NHS Inform rather than to social media for help.

At the same time as improving information for the public, we have worked with NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and other partners to provide educational tools on menstrual health and menopause for Primary Care. We hope that these tools will improve the quality of consultations in primary care including, for example, encouraging GPs to consider a working diagnosis of endometriosis earlier when women present with symptoms such as dysmenorrhoea (painful periods).

A critical barrier to improving the reproductive health of women and girls has been the very long time that they have to wait to be seen and treated when referred to secondary care. We have worked closely with the Minister for Women’s Health to draw attention to this, and I am pleased to say that gynaecology is considered a priority area and has received extra funding to help towards reducing waiting times. We all know that, despite additional funding, the problem will persist. Gynaecology is no longer a purely surgical speciality; the majority of women referred to see a gynaecologist do not need even an outpatient procedure. In Phase Two of the Plan, we are determined to tackle the issue of re-design of gynaecology services proposing that much of the work could be undertaken in the community by SRH specialists/community gynaecologists, with appropriate funding.

With respect to heart health, I am thrilled that work linking women with pregnancy induced hypertension and pre-eclampsia after their discharge from maternity service, to ‘Connect-me’ (the remote system for monitoring and managing hypertension) will be taken forward as a data pilot project in NHS Lothian. If this project is successful, then we need to highlight other reproductive health conditions, such as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and premature menopause, which are associated with a significantly increased risk of heart disease in later life for which long term monitoring of blood pressure should be of benefit.

As for contraception and abortion, it was a particular honour to chair the Expert Group charged with reviewing the Abortion Law. The work was intense, but all members of the group were proud to have been part of the exercise to ensure abortion is treated first and foremost as a healthcare matter. The report^[1] was published in November 2025 and I sincerely hope that it will progress through the parliamentary process following the election in May 2026.

In contrast I feel I have failed dismally in my efforts to try to restore access to the long-acting methods of contraception to where it was before Covid. Although contraception is undoubtedly one of the most cost-effective public health interventions, it is seldom regarded as a priority, even at a time when the emphasis on healthcare in Scotland is aiming to move towards prevention. But I am not ready to give up on the challenge.

I also chaired the Expert Group on Cervical Cancer Elimination. The report^[2] from this group was published in December 2025. The Group recommended to the Minister that we work towards eliminating cervical cancer by 2040. It will not be easy as we need to ensure that 90% of girls are vaccinated against HPV by the age of 15 and that 90% of women are screened regularly. Vaccine hesitancy is on the increase and many women find cervical screening embarrassing and sometimes uncomfortable. Changing human behaviour is a huge challenge but if all the relevant participants, including the government, come together with a shared vision and a national effort, we should be able to succeed. I hope to continue working on this topic to ensure that we do not lose momentum in this collective ambition.

Looking forward to Phase Two of the Plan we know that everyone in the NHS is extremely stretched and the last thing we want to do is present them with a long list of new things to do. Women’s Health should be everyone’s business and I hope that the ambition of the Women’s Health Plan, that women and girls enjoy the best possible health, throughout their lives, continues to be something that all polices and services can aspire to – beyond the specific actions set out in the Women’s Health Plan.

We are anxious in Phase Two of the Plan to do more for older women. In consultation with various groups, we have identified bone health, pelvic floor health, brain health and investing in future health as areas where we could contribute. We have set up a small group to help us with the work on pelvic floor health, with an emphasis on prevention of both urinary and faecal incontinence. We are working with the Royal Osteoporosis Society to provide more accurate information to women about bone health, and I will sit on the Scottish Fracture Liaison Service Audit Group.

Two thirds of the 90,000 people living with dementia in Scotland are women. I am also sitting on the Brain Health and Dementia Risk Cross Policy Group and am pleased to report that, at the first meeting, it was decided to focus on three main areas – Early Diagnosis, Brain Health Services and Women.

Scotland is a small country. We all know one another. In Women’s Health we have a consensus on where we want to get to, and we are pretty clear about to how to do it. I think we have the commitment and enthusiasm that are the key to success.

Professor Anna Glasier, OBE

Women’s Health Champion