Women's Health Alliance Meeting organised by Dr Carrie Sadler
Significant progress is being made
INITIATIVE ON WOMEN'S HEALTH BEGINS TO MAKE SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS
The Women's Health Alliance, WHA, with sponsorship from Wyeth, has the potential to provide a valuable service for women whose lives are adversely affected by peculiarly female health conditions. After some considerable preliminary groundwork, a meeting of interested parties was recently convened in Manchester by Dr. Carrie Sadler, NAPS Trustee, and was attended by representatives of Women's Health Concern, Menopause Matters, Daisy Network and Menopause Exchange. Unable to be respresented on this occasion, but included in the initiative, are Verity, the Hysterectomy Association, the Infertility Network and the National Endometriosis Society.
The WHA will play an important role in improving the health of women. It will enable the fostering of relationships between like-minded women's health advocacy societies, which will benefit women in the following ways: increasing cross referral of cases better dealt with by another society other than the one originally approached; facilitating the development of projects for improving information to women; allowing information to be amalgamated which might improve support provided to women in the future. Secondly, the WHA will strengthen the voice of its member groups in lobbying the Department of Health and other bodies responsible for improving women's health services. Thirdly, it has the potential to facilitate joint fund raising bids, advantageous in a challenging economic climate. Finally, the development of a WHA website giving evidence, based on regularly up-dated information from authorised advisers/health professionals, will be an invaluable tool both for the women who suffer from the conditions covered within the WHA umbrella and for those who are tasked with their care.
This is a welcome initiative of which NAPS is proud to be a founding member. Our representatives, Dr. Sadler and Mr. Nick Panay, NAPS Chairman, have seen the opportunities which the WHA offers for improving women's health and of course helping PMS sufferers in particular.
It is intended to invite the other participating members of the WHA to submit an account of their aims and work for publication in future bulletins, in order to create a better mutual understanding of women's health problems and to underscore the importance of the WHA for the future.
