Health minister: Women are different

Quicker diagnosis and better treatment for women is the priority of a Scottish Government healthcare blueprint.

The 68-page Women’s Health Plan aims to address the inequalities in care that women still face, particularly when it comes to heart problems. It will create a research fund to plug gaps in scientific knowledge related to women’s health and a women’s health champion and health lead will be appointed in every NHS board.

Research will also be commissioned on endometriosis, a longterm condition where tissue similar to that in the womb grows elsewhere and can cause chronic pain.

The average diagnosis of the condition, which is estimated to impact 10% in the UK, takes eight and a half years. The action plan comes after a damning report by Baroness Cumberlege into how women with three conditions were failed by health professionals who patronised them and dismissed their complaints. They included mesh-injured women and the report prompted our Hear Our Voice campaign to secure the appointment of a Patient Safety Commissioner recommended by the Cumberlege Report.

Women suffer a disparity in treatment across a range of conditions.

Heart problems kill more than three times the number of women in Scotland than breast cancer does but women are 50% more likely to receive the wrong initial diagnosis for a heart attack than a man.

Women’s health minister, Maree Todd, said: “There are often big differences between women and men in their experience of heart disease – in their access to treatment and the way their cases are handled.

“The Women’s Health Plan reveals how we will tackle these inequalities, which quite frankly shouldn’t exist. A number of conditions, like Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection, are more likely to affect women, but are less understood or recognised. We want to make heart health part of pregnancy discussions, ensure women are better represented in clinical trials and develop cardiac rehabilitation specific to women’s needs.

“We need to see that women can be affected by disease in a different way – and treat them accordingly.”