Department of Health and Social Care release Women’s Health Strategy

Last month, the Department of Health and Social care released the Women’s Health strategy for England. It takes the form of a long-term plan for transformational change across priority areas related to specific conditions and will be pivotal in improving the way in which the health and care system listens to women’s voices, and boost health outcomes for women and girls.

As part of this strategy, Professor Dame Lesley Regan was appointed as Women’s Health Ambassador for England to champion women’s voices and lead a programme of work to support delivery of the strategy. Her role will be key to driving engagement with professional bodies and the wider public.

Professor Dame Lesley Regan featured in DigitalHealth.London’s panel discussion at Intelligent Health UK on the topic of how digital technology and AI can help deliver the women’s health strategy. Read this blog to find out more.

The strategy sets out a six-point long-term plan and then goes on to summarise its approach within the following priority areas:

  • Menstrual health and gynaecological conditions
  • Fertility, pregnancy, pregnancy loss and postnatal support
  • Menopause
  • Mental health and wellbeing
  • Cancers
  • The health impacts of violence against women and girls
  • Healthy ageing and long-term conditions

Here at DigitalHealth.London, we run a number of programmes which support innovators and NHS staff working within digital transformation. Read on to find out more about the innovators and clinicians we’ve supported within these key areas across Women’s Health:

Companies:

Alva – a digital health platform serving menopausal women. They provide women with information and support to ensure they do not suffer through menopause. Annie Coleridge, Co-Founder of Alva, shares three big lessons the team have learnt from working with the NHS during their time on our Launchpad programme in this blog.

bumpf – a pregnancy app which contains proven lifesaving content from MAMA Academy. Sarah, Heidi and Rachel share how bumpf was created and the NHS challenges they hope to resolve in this blog.

Canopie – an evidence-based digital program that can prevent and address maternal mental health problems at scale. Ann Don Bosco, Co-Founder of Canopie, shares details on how the digital platform supports maternal mental health in this video.

Hampton – K2 Hampton™ enables women with hypertension to remotely enter blood pressure and urine protein results from home and work, prompting them to contact their midwife when they enter an out-of-range result.

Peppy Health – a digital health app which provides support through life’s big transitions, such as becoming a parent, going through the menopause or going through a fertility journey. They connect users with experienced practitioners. Mridula Pore, CEO and Co-founder of Peppy, shares five steps organisations can take to support their employees’ wellbeing in this blog.

NHS staff:

Rachel Perfect – Rachel’s Horizon Fellowship project is focused on implementing a patient initiated follow up pathway for patients who have been treated for endometrial cancers.

Natalie Nunes – Natalie’s work focuses around The Eirene Project: EIRENE – usE of vIrtual Reality hEadsets iN outpatiEnt manual vacuum aspiration. After a pregnancy loss that has not yet passed, women have the option of waiting for it to pass naturally, using medication to initiate it passing, or to have a procedure to remove it. Virtual Reality headsets have been shown to reduce pain scores and the wish is that the use of them during these procedures will reduce pain and improve experience during this difficult time.

Vanessa Ponnusamy – The aim of Vanessa’s Horizon Fellowship project is to build a Care Information Exchange (CIE – Patient Knows Best) portal into the Mum & Baby App to allow users to complete their maternity care and support plans in their CIE account. This will enable the clinicians/midwives to view these digitally via an existing CIE portal on the hospital record system.


The DigitalHealth.London Accelerator is a collaborative programme funded by two of London’s Academic Health Science Networks – UCL Partners and the Health Innovation Network, MedCity, CW+ and receives match funding from the European Regional Development Fund.

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