APPG SRH event highlights the need for a lifecourse approach to SRH

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sexual and Reproductive Health (APPG SRH) held an event on 26th October, focused on the need for a lifecourse approach to sexual and reproductive healthcare (SRH). The APPG SRH is calling for the Government’s upcoming SRH Strategy to address the long-standing challenges in SRH provision raised during the event's discussions and reflect the need for a lifecourse approach.

Over 90 people attended the virtual event, which was chaired by the APPG’s Co-Chair Dame Diana Johnson DBE MP and featured the following experts and healthcare professionals as panellists:

• Alison Hadley, Chair of Trustees at Sex Education Forum
• Dr Anne Connolly, Chair of the Primary Care Women’s Health Forum
• Dr Edward Mullins, Clinical Lecturer at the Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, Imperial College London
• Dr Lynne Robinson, Council Member of the British Menopause Society

Pannellists set out the importance of accessible and individualised SRH at each stage of women’s lives, from puberty through the years of menstruation, to the menopause and beyond. Key areas of focus during the event included the importance of access to effective relationships and sex education (RSE), the need for SRH to be more broadly integrated into women’s healthcare pathways in the NHS, setting up access to post-birth contraception and improvements needed in the provision of menopause care.

As part of discussions, the Chair highlighted the need to ensure the upcoming SRH and Women’s Health Strategies reflect the adoption of a lifecourse approach and work in synergy with each other. It was also acknowledged that in order to see positive change ‘on the ground’ for women, there is also a need to address the key enablers of this change – including a properly-resourced and trained workforce and improved national accountability for women’s reproductive health.

The Chair highlighted the need to ensure the upcoming SRH and Women’s Health Strategies reflect the adoption of a lifecourse approach and work in synergy with each other.

The event also covered the actions that the APPG is taking to advocate in Parliament on other issues in the SRH space, including driving engagement with the findings of the APPG’s Inquiry into Access to Contraception, continuing its calls for telemedicine in early medical abortion to be made permanent and focusing on the need to establish a comprehensive abortion service in Northern Ireland.

You can read a summary of the event here.