Women's Health Fund

The Women's Health Fund was etablished in Budget 2021 to respond to the needs of women as and when they arise.

Since its inception it has funded just over 100 initiatives at various levels including Research, Pilots Programmes, Training and Awareness Campaigns.

The fund has also funded staffing to enable services to be developed at a much faster pace that if they were progressed through the normal budgetary processes such as the specialist menopause clinics and the ambulatory gynaecology clinics

• With initiatives to date including cervical cancer elimination, improving HPV vaccination uptake in underserved communities, expansion of the free contraception campaign, Enhancing women’s health care after stroke, enhanced service provision in areas like perinatal mental health and specialist centres for paediatric and adolescent gynaecology services.
• Following the 1st Endometriosis Listening Forum the Minister and women’s health programme has highlighted endometriosis as a priority area for funding under the Women’s Health Fund.
• The Women’s Health Fund will ring fence funding in 2026 and 2027 to support the Applied Partnership Awards Women’s Health Research Programme operated by the Health Research Board.
• Through the Women’s Health Fund we will continue to ringfence funding to support innovative approaches to women’s health in line with this Action Plan.