Search the hub
Showing results for tags 'Womens health'.
Found 814 results
-
Content ArticleIn this letter to Maria Caulfield MP, the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) First Do No Harm raises concerns that several recommendations from The Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety (IMMDS) Review have not so far been taken up by the government. The IMMDS Review looked at how the health system responds to reports from patients about harmful side effects from medicines and medical devices. It specifically looked at the cases of Primodos (a hormone pregnancy test), sodium valproate (an epilepsy medication) and pelvic mesh, and found that significant harm had been caused as a result of problems in the regulatory system and the reporting of side effects. It made a number of key recommendations to the government. The APPG highlights the urgent need to establish a redress scheme for those who have suffered avoidable harm related to the products in the IMMDS Review, a recommendation for which there is widespread cross-party support. They also express disappointment that the government continues to promote the litigation route for those who have suffered harm, arguing that it is an adversarial and difficult process for patients and families who have already suffered significant harm. The letter does recognise that the government has decided to appoint a Patient Safety Commissioner, as recommended by the IMMDS Review, and highlights the significance of this step.
-
Content ArticlePregnant women seeking asylum in the UK face many challenges in accessing healthcare and support during pregnancy and after birth. In this blog, Ros Bragg, director of Maternity Action, highlights evidence the organisation recently gave to the Women and Equalities Select Committee as part of their inquiry into equality and the UK asylum system. She highlights the inadequate level of financial support given to pregnant women seeking asylum, which means they are not able to eat healthily or buy necessary equipment during the perinatal period. She also draws attention to the fact that recent updates to the Home Office policy on dispersal for pregnant women - that state that they should not be moved more than once during pregnancy, and should be moved to suitable accommodation - are not being followed in practice. This prevents women seeking asylum from accessing consistent healthcare and building trust and relationships with midwives and other healthcare professionals.
-
Content Article
Menopause and the workplace: Fawcett Society 2022
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Women's health
Workplaces are failing menopausal women and change is urgently needed. A report from the Fawcett Society 'Menopause and the Workplace'' delves into women’s experiences at work and is the largest representative survey of menopausal women conducted in the UK. -
Content ArticleGB News interviews Kath Sansom, founder of Sling the Mesh, and Alec Shelbrooke, MP, on the thousands of lives that have been ruined by mesh implants.
-
Content Article
The operation that ruined my life (BBC Panorama, 29 November 2022)
Sam posted an article in Women's health
Women across the UK are suffering after an operation they were told would transform their lives. Instead, some of them say their lives have been ruined. For years women have been fitted with mesh-like devices to treat prolapse or incontinence - often caused by childbirth. Although it's been a successful treatment for many of them, thousands of women in the US, the UK and Australia are now suing, after finding themselves in agony or suffering other serious complications. -
Content ArticleThe Mental Health Foundation proudly support Black Maternal Mental Health Week in this blog for The Motherhood Group on the experiences of Black mothers.
-
Content Article
Top tips: Maternal mental health (26 September 2022)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Maternity
As part of maternal mental health awareness week, The Motherhood Group asked Sandra Igwe for her tips to look after your mental health and wellbeing. -
Content ArticleIn general approximately 1 in 5 women from all different backgrounds experience perinatal mental health difficulties – that is mental health challenges during the perinatal period which is defined as one year after the birth of a baby. However, for black women perinatal mental health difficulties often go unidentified, and thus untreated, placing them at a disadvantage when it comes to seeking professional help. For this year's Black Maternal Mental Health Week, Global Black Maternal Health is proud to support The Motherhood Group as they continue to raise awareness on black maternal mental health, with a focus on equity and inequality for black mothers.
-
Content ArticleAn open letter to Brandon Lewis, the justice secretary, and the Sentencing Council for England and Wales warns that pregnant women in jail suffer severe stress and highlights evidence suggesting they are more likely to have a stillbirth. The signatories include the Royal College of Midwives and Liberty.
-
Content ArticleGender is emerging as a significant factor in the social, economic, and health effects of COVID-19. However, most existing studies have focused on its direct impact on health. Here, we aimed to explore the indirect effects of COVID-19 on gender disparities globally. The most significant gender gaps identified in our study show intensified levels of pre-existing widespread inequalities between women and men during the COVID-19 pandemic. Political and social leaders should prioritise policies that enable and encourage women to participate in the labour force and continue their education, thereby equipping and enabling them with greater ability to overcome the barriers they face.
-
Content ArticleWomen are 50% more likely to receive a wrong initial diagnosis; when they are having a heart attack, such mistakes can be fatal. People who are initially misdiagnosed have a 70% higher risk of dying. The latest studies have similarly shown that women have worse outcomes for heart operations such as valve replacements and peripheral revascularisation. As well as being misdiagnosed, women are less likely to be treated quickly, less likely to get the best surgical treatment and less likely to be discharged with the optimum set of drugs. None of this is excusable, but is it understandable? What is behind this bias and how can how it be fixed? Sian Harding, emeritus professor of cardiac pharmacology at Imperial College London, looks at the evidence in this Guardian article. Related reading Dangerous exclusions: The risk to patient safety of sex and gender bias Gender bias: A threat to women’s health Medicines, research and female hormones: a dangerous knowledge gap
-
Content ArticleA handful of immunologists are pushing the field to take attributes such as sex chromosomes, sex hormones, and reproductive tissues into account.
-
Content ArticleOn 24 June 2022, the US Supreme Court overruled both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey and returned the question of abortion’s legality to the US. The ruling opens the door to additional State efforts to limit access to medication abortions, prevent third parties from assisting anyone seeking an abortion or punish women who end their pregnancy. This opinion piece in The New England Journal of Medicine looks at the implications of the end of Roe v. Wade beyond abortion, examining how it could affect other aspects of healthcare rights in the USA. The author, Zita Lazzarini from the Division of Public Health Law and Bioethics at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, argues that the Supreme Court's ruling opens the door for state regulation of other healthcare decisions, including those regarding contraception, end-of-life care, care for LGBTQ patients and fertility treatments. She highlights that common forms of birth control including IUDs and emergency contraception are already being targeted by some states as “abortifacients,” and raises concerns that State laws declaring that life begins at fertilization will potentially endow thousands of frozen embryos with rights, imposing impossible burdens on fertility centres and their clients.
-
Content ArticleThis is an Early Day Motion tabled in the House of Commons on 5 September 2022, which calls on the Government to implement the recommendations of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review in full, in particular recommendation 4 of the report calling for the establishment of separate schemes to meet the costs of additional care and support to those who have suffered avoidable harm.
-
Content ArticleSurgical mesh is a medical device that is used to provide additional support when repairing weakened or damaged tissue. The majority of surgical mesh devices currently available for use are made from man-made (synthetic) materials or animal tissue. This page on the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website outlines the types and uses of surgical mesh and the latest update on mesh manufacturers ordered to stop selling devices for transvaginal repair of pelvic organ prolapse.
-
Content ArticleResearch suggests that there is a wide gap in knowledge about how medical conditions affect men and women differently, and about the conditions that only affect women. As a result, women are receiving poorer medical advice and diagnosis, often leading to worse outcomes. This handbook published by digital healthcare provider Livi looks at some of the evidence surrounding sex-based health inequalities and how they are affecting women in the UK.
-
Content ArticleFor the first time since the 1990s, the Surgeons’ Hall Museums in Edinburgh has displayed a new pathology specimen—a transvaginal tape removed in April 2022 from a woman suffering complications of vaginal tape (or mesh) surgery performed in 2006. In this blog Louise Wilkie, the museums' Curator, explains how the device came to be displayed, the history of vaginal tape surgery and the controversy surrounding its introduction and regulation. She also highlights concerns about the subsequent treatment of women who experienced life-changing complications as a result of the procedure.
-
Content ArticleThe Women’s Health Strategy promises to address the poor experiences and worse health outcomes that women endure. The underlying cause of these issues is that the health system has historically been built by men for men. Consequently, women are often not listened to or believed by the health and care system. So, the crucial question is, will this strategy change the culture in the NHS of women not being listened to about their health and wellbeing?
-
Content Article
.png.686122fd7ef580de437308c846d4586a.png)
In this joint blog, Patient Safety Learning and Sling the Mesh highlight several issues with the specialist mesh centres set up by the NHS to provide treatment and surgery for women who have been harmed by mesh. We identify key patient safety issues and look at what needs to be done to ensure women receive timely, compassionate and appropriate treatment for complications they face as a result of mesh implants. -
Content ArticleVaginal tapes, slings and meshes are medical devices that are surgically implanted to treat stress urinary incontinence (SUI) and pelvic organ prolapse (POP) in women. This report written on behalf of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) by York Health Economics Consortium, provides summaries of safety and adverse events related to vaginal tapes for SUI and POP. The summaries were developed using the data reported in systematic reviews of the effects and safety of vaginal tapes published in the 10 years up to 2012.
-
Content ArticleThis is the first in a new series of ‘In Conversation with’ podcasts from the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on First Do No Harm. In this episode Lord Philip Hunt discusses the key achievements of the Health and Care Act 2022 of relevance to the APPG’s work, and the areas still left to address. The APPG on First Do No Harm is a group of parliamentarians who are committed to raising awareness of and building support for the recommendations in First Do No Harm, the report of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, and to ensure the implementation of the recommendations by the UK Government and others.
-
Content ArticlePainful menstruation—dysmenorrhea—interferes with the daily life of around one in five women. This blog looks at why painful periods receive so little research attention and examines the impact this has on women's lives and health. Sharing a personal story of her own painful periods, the author discusses how doctors are quick to prescribe birth control pills and antidepressants to treat painful periods, rather than investigating the problem to find out whether the cause of pain is endometriosis, a condition where endometrial tissue forms outside the uterus. It is thought that around 10% of ovulating women in the US have endometriosis and it takes an average of ten years for accurate diagnosis. The author discusses the need to raise the visibility of dysmenorrhea and endometriosis so that medical research takes it on as a serious issue.
-
Content ArticleIs good-quality health care being provided for women in prison? As the government proceeds with plans to build 500 more prison places for women, this new Nuffield Trust analysis uses HES data to look at women prisoners' use of hospital services, finding that they face a series of challenges and risks in prison because of barriers to accessing health and care services.
-
Content ArticleThe government has published the first ever Women's Health Strategy for England to tackle the gender health gap.
-
Content ArticleAfter the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first warned in 2008 of serious complications associated with transvaginal mesh, thousands of lawsuits have been filed, most of which were compiled into seven federal multidistrict litigation cases against the major manufacturers. This blog by Meghann Cuniff for Forbes Advisor provides an update on the progress of these law suits. It also advises on how to file a vaginal mesh lawsuit and joining a class action lawsuit.
.png.686122fd7ef580de437308c846d4586a.png)