Coinciding with International Women’s Day, Sheffield Hospitals Charity is launching a campaign to tackle women’s health inequalities across Sheffield.
Reverend and the Makers’ Laura McClure and Sheffield United Women FC players have joined influential female leaders from across Sheffield to lend the charity their support by appearing in a campaign video titled #NoWomanLeftBehind.
Women play a pivotal role in everyone’s health – from their own health during pregnancy, through to the care they give to others throughout their lives.
There’s a wealth of data which demonstrates the need for improved support for women in Sheffield. Research has shown that the women and girls’ sector is not getting anywhere near sufficient investment. As such, there are social, moral, and economic reasons to invest in tackling women’s health inequalities in Sheffield.
Sheffield Hospitals Charity is scoping projects in three areas to help combat these inequalities:
Maternal health: support for women with complex needs during pregnancy and beyond, including mental health support (ethnically diverse women, and women from more deprived areas are statistically more likely to experience worse maternal and neonatal mortality rates).
Maternal health is affected hugely by factors outside of the hospital, including poverty and race. Startling statistics show that women in the most deprived areas are twice as likely to die during the perinatal period than women in the least deprived areas, and Black women are almost four times more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth or the postnatal period than white women; Asian women are twice as likely to die than white women. (1)
Charity funding will enable culturally appropriate antenatal classes to tackle these issues. The benefits include increases in responsive parenting and improved bonding with baby which can support baby’s brain development, and increased engagement with public services including healthcare and education which help to reduce inequalities further on in life. Sheffield Hospitals Charity is building on this work to tackle inequalities, with support for pregnant women with more complex lives who would benefit from extra support to get ready for, and care for baby.
More broadly, the charity supports a range of work at Jessop Maternity Wing, including family accommodation and a stocked kitchen for parents of babies in neonatal intensive care (used by over 100 families each month), and Family Care Nurse to work with families to improve their experiences and support them while their baby is being cared for. A Bereavement Suite is also available for families who suffer the loss of a baby.
Violence against women: practical and mental health support for female NHS staff who are affected by domestic abuse (nationally, nurses are three times more likely to experience domestic abuse than the average person (2); Sheffield Hospitals Charity help to support around 22,000 NHS staff in Sheffield, 74% of which are women).
Women in Yorkshire and Humber have some of the highest levels of domestic violence abuse in the country and in 2022/23 South Yorkshire Police had the 10th highest rate across 42 police force areas of domestic abuse related crime. (3)
Alarmingly, in 2021, Cavell Nurses’ Trust (2) found that female healthcare workers have a 24 per cent higher risk of suicide than the female national average, with female doctors and nurses more likely to take their own lives than their male counterparts.
Sheffield Hospitals Charity are working to develop projects that support NHS staff who have experienced or are experiencing domestic abuse. These projects will be for female staff across Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS FT and Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS FT, and compliment the hundreds of thousands of pounds the charity spends each year to support NHS staff mental health and wellbeing, training and education.
By looking after the staff and services at the centre of patient care, they’re ready to look after you.
Early cancer diagnosis: supporting women in the core 20% most deprived areas of the city to access screening (a third of women are missing cervical screening). (4)
The NHS aims to eliminate cervical cancer by 2040 through cervical screening and uptake of the HPV vaccine.
Sheffield Hospitals Charity is working with GP practices to provide targeted support to local communities in Sheffield with the lowest uptake of cervical screening which falls well below the average rate for England.
Screening will be encouraged in ways that seek to overcome barriers including generational trauma, experience of female genital mutilation and cultural factors.
The charity believes that every woman affected by cervical cancer should have the opportunity for an early diagnosis.
More broadly, Sheffield Hospitals Charity fund complementary therapies for people undergoing cancer treatments, vital cancer research, and are investing over £1million in a surgical robot which will deliver some of the 3,000+ cancer surgeries that take place across Sheffield Teaching Hospitals every year.
Sources and references:
1. APPG on Birth Trauma, Listen to Mums: Ending the Postcode Lottery on Perinatal Care, 2024
2. Cavell Nurses' Trust, Skint, shaken, yet still caring. But who is caring for our nurses, 2021
3. Sheffield City Council, From Surviving to Safety: Sheffield’s Strategy to End Domestic and Sexual Abuse and Violence Against Women and Girls 2024-2030
4. NHS England Jan 2023
Published: Wednesday 5th of March 2025