Written by Jessica Hobbis (BA). Reviewed and comments made by Elaine Galston. 

Elaine Galston has been involved in the startup sector for over 20 years. She previously managed two start-up engineering companies, both private equity-owned, working to grow one from base technology to a £16m turnover in 5 years with a trade exit in 2016. She has mentored, advised and trained female founders through AccelerateHer, Barclays, Scottish Enterprise and Elevator, and is a regular speaker at Femtech and female investing Events. She currently runs her own femtech startup, Bettii, which recently raised over £500k to bring her groundbreaking idea of a free-to-use menstrual cup and disc washer, installed inside the cubicles of away-from-home toilets, closer to commercialisation. She is currently organising Bettii Presents, Scotland’s first dedicated, whole body, women’s health event, bringing together over 20 clinical, health and fitness specialists and over 30 stalls showcasing Femtech innovations and services.

The Issue: Token Efforts Are Not Enough. 

‘Feminism’ and ‘Empowerment’ are not new terms to our vocabulary, and we often see these banded around and attached to a whole range of initiatives, products and services, all claiming to be in our ‘best interests’. Yet, how many times have you actually felt specifically heard by or spoken to by any of these? How often do you feel empowered within the healthcare system by being told that you should simply ‘speak up’? How much progress do you think the UK has made in women’s health recently? 

The answer is this: There are still deep-rooted and pervasive healthcare disparities between men and women in the UK, with the UK having the largest women’s health gap across all G20 countries. The Beneden Report found that 44% of UK women wanted to see more awareness around women’s health issues from the government, as well as 42% wanting more training around women’s health issues. 

Patient and public engagement and involvement (PPIE) in women’s health research, advocacy and care is crucial for improving outcomes for all women and people. However, the extent to which tokenistic efforts actually make a difference, rather than promoting a particular product, service, or authority, is still up for debate. The question still remains as to how best to create an inclusive and equitable healthcare system that genuinely engages and involves women and all people. 

The Potential Of Community Events 

Research has shown that creating events where women can be active participants, rather than being lectured to, is more effective in increasing engagement in activities that promote health. Community allows for a two-way relationship in which trust and understanding are built, rather than people being dictated to. This creates a safe environment where people feel empowered to voice their concerns, allowing barriers to inclusion to be addressed appropriately. 

Particularly for marginalised communities who are often excluded or may feel isolated from the healthcare system, community events therefore serve as a pathway for better listening to these voices and genuinely including them in the process. By doing so, we can create activities, policies and strategies that support everyone. 

This is not to say that all community events are the ‘silver bullet’ to addressing healthcare inequalities. It is important to note that researchers have identified (some) essential qualities of making an effective event, including: the location choice being social and in proximity to community member’s homes, and the facilitator of the event themself being from the community.  

It is also crucial to ensure that community events have clear follow-ups that directly result from the communities they are engaging with. When we claim to involve ‘women’s voices’ without clear actions stemming from such knowledge, we risk doing a disservice to these women and people who may feel unsupported after sharing their stories. 

Implications For Future Care Models: 

The Women’s Health Strategy for England

When the Women’s Health Strategy for England was announced in 2022, it was intended to address some of the health inequalities experienced by women. This aims to do so in a variety of ways, including advocating for workplace reform, improving screening services, and establishing community hubs known as Women’s Health Hubs. 

Women’s Health Hubs have been a key feature of the Women’s Health Strategy for England, with a clear focus on expanding community services accessible to women. They aim to make a variety of women’s health services more accessible and better tailored to the local population. While many of these are still being piloted or facing funding concerns, preliminary data have shown that women often feel listened to and their healthcare needs met in the community hubs created here. This highlights the importance of localised and community-facing healthcare provisions for women, with genuine engagement found through a more collaborative style of care. 

The Women’s Health Strategy for Scotland

Scotland’s focus on the health of its women has been central to Government policy in recent years. The Women’s Health Strategy Scotland detailed 66 actions to address health inequalities for women and girls to include menstrual health, menopause, contraception, and endometriosis, amongst others. The first phase of this plan ran from 2021 - 2024, and some progress was made, including appointing a Women’s Health Champion (Professor Anna Glasier, world expert on emergency contraception), establishing legal buffer zones around abortion services, and adding further training for women’s health topics such as Menopause.  We look forward to the next phase of this plan and would love for this to incorporate more community-led care and support for the people it serves. 

A Women’s Health Example:

UK women spend roughly £1.5 billion more than men on their healthcare, with this being attributed to a range of issues, including misdiagnosis, inefficiencies in care and underrepresentation in research. Yet women’s desire for understanding, for information, and to take back control has never been higher. However, this can be hard. In a world full of misinformation and an exhausted NHS, many women don’t know where to turn to get the facts. They often don’t know about the products and services that can help them and the innovations that are constantly emerging.  

This is where events like Bettii Presents come in. Led by doctors and health and fitness experts, their range of talks, interactive sessions, and stallholders will create a day that women can truly enjoy while learning about their bodies, how to manage them, and how to protect them for the future. This aims to empower women with knowledge about their own bodies, enabling them to make decisions that are right for them. 

This is why OVUM is so proud to be participating in Bettii Presents’ first event this 5th October in Glasgow. We want to use such a day to listen to those who visit, understand them, and make space for conversations that can genuinely change health outcomes, awareness and perceptions. 

The Key Takeaways: 

• The current status quo of tokenistic posts or methods that lecture communities about their health is not proving successful in raising awareness or engagement. 

• Instead, more active methods that directly involve women and people present an opportunity to make genuine change in women’s health policy and outcomes. 

• These methods can be applied across the UK to inform care models that better involve the women they aim to serve. We are starting to see this through Women’s Health Hubs, but there is still a lot of work to do. 

• OVUM is dedicated to genuinely improving the health of women and people by participating in these community events. So, if you're running a community event you think could do with our support, please get in touch [at jessica@startwithovum.com].