Women's health and primary care: time to get it right for the life course.

Recent Women’s Health Strategies, published in Scotland1 and announced for England,2 are a welcome recognition that for too long women have lived within health and care systems designed mostly for men, by men.2 Their explicit focus on women’s health needs throughout the life course is sorely needed. Women face significant health inequalities across their lives. Although women typically live longer than men, fewer of those years are in good health.2 Those living in social and economically deprived settings experience even poorer outcomes.3 These inequalities have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, including increased period poverty,4 increased domestic violence,5 and women carrying a greater burden of home schooling and unpaid care work.6 Primary care needs to be at the heart of any strategy to support and enhance women’s health. Primary care can (and does) play a central role in supporting women from before menarche to the menopause and beyond. GPs support women who might never need (or want) specialist input from secondary care. However, even where women are supported in secondary care, the GP’s role encompasses care before, during, and beyond periods of specialist or focused secondary care involvement. The GP role includes prevention as well as early intervention including through contraception, pre-conception advice and screening, and menopause management. Historically, women have been underrepresented in trials and research data.7 This has led to a medical understanding of …