---
title: "No ring-fenced cash for Jersey’s women’s health strategy, campaigner warns"
url: https://www.nsfw.info/jersey-womens-health-strategy-no-ring-fenced-funding/
published: 2026-11-12T11:00:48+00:00
modified: 2026-11-12T11:00:48+00:00
author: "Chief Editor"
categories: ["Government"]
image: https://www.nsfw.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/jersey-womens-health-strategy-no-ring-fenced-funding-1024x572.webp
summary: "Jersey's first women's health strategy is due in December, but campaigner Trudi Roscouet warns there is no costed delivery plan and no dedicated funding behind"
publisher: NSFW (https://www.nsfw.info)
---

# No ring-fenced cash for Jersey’s women’s health strategy, campaigner warns

**In brief:** Jersey’s first women’s health strategy is due to be published by December, but a campaigner is warning that without a costed delivery plan, the document risks becoming an end in itself rather than a driver of real change. No specific funding has been allocated, and key questions about menopause care, endometriosis and pelvic health remain unanswered.

## A Strategy Without a Price Tag

Jersey is set to receive its first women’s health strategy before the end of the year, with December identified as the intended publication month. That sounds like progress. The trouble, as campaigner Trudi Roscouet has pointed out, is that a glossy document and a funded plan of action are two very different things, and right now the government appears to have only one of them.

Roscouet, founder of Eve Studios and Vitality40plus, has submitted evidence to the Scrutiny panel reviewing the proposed government Budget. Her concern is straightforward: the strategy has a publication date but no costed delivery settlement. As she put it, “there is a material risk that publication of the strategy will be treated as delivery in itself.”

It is a fair point. Bailiwick Express reports that back in September, it was confirmed that no specific funding had been allocated to the strategy and no business case had yet been put forward. Assistant Health Minister Andy Howell told the States that improvements would be “funded via existing budgets” and might “require changes to the way we deliver existing services.” In plain English: the money will come from somewhere, we just have not decided where yet.

## The £4 Million Question

Ministers have suggested that some of the £4 million annual Prevention First programme could be directed towards women’s health. However, Roscouet notes that no specific women’s health allocation within that fund has been identified. So the strategy may be funded by a pot that has not yet been earmarked for it, which is a little like promising to buy someone a birthday present from money you have not yet decided to spend.

The only detailed service proposal raised so far is extending free contraception beyond the age of 21. Even that, Bailiwick Express reports, remains undecided in terms of scope, cost and timetable. Meanwhile, significant areas of women’s health, including menopause care, endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome, bleeding after menopause and pelvic health, remain without answers on staffing, referral pathways or waiting times.

Roscouet is calling for the cost and funding source of each planned action for 2027 to be published alongside the strategy itself, together with details of any existing services that would be reduced or reorganised to free up resources. She is also asking for current waiting times and clinic capacity to be made public, so that Islanders can judge for themselves whether access to care actually improves over time.

## A Rocky Road to This Point

The path to even this modest milestone has been bumpy. Plans for a stand-alone women’s health strategy were scrapped by ministers due to a lack of funding and staff resources, despite strong public engagement with a consultation process. Ministers instead said they would focus on specific areas already under way, including IVF funding, contraception services and abortion law reform. That decision drew criticism from politicians and campaigners, who argued that broader issues affecting women risked being sidelined.

The Health and Social Security Scrutiny Panel subsequently lodged a successful amendment to the Budget, calling for a dedicated women’s health strategy to be reinstated and delivered by the end of 2026. The strategy’s reinstatement is therefore the result of political pressure, not ministerial initiative, which perhaps explains why the funding question remains so conspicuously unresolved.

## The NSFW Perspective

There is something almost admirable about the Government of Jersey’s ability to commit to a deliverable while simultaneously declining to explain how it will be delivered or paid for. Publishing a strategy is, of course, far easier than funding one. Words are cheap; pelvic health physiotherapists, menopause clinics and endometriosis pathways are not.

Roscouet’s submission to Scrutiny is a model of measured, evidence-based advocacy. She is not asking for the earth. She wants a costed plan, measurable outcomes and transparency about waiting times. These are not radical demands. They are the basic building blocks of accountable public health policy.

The risk, as she rightly identifies, is that December brings a well-designed document, a ministerial press release and a collective sigh of relief, while Islanders who need better care are left waiting for a 2027 that never quite arrives. Jersey’s women deserve better than a strategy that exists primarily to say it exists.

*Source: [Bailiwick Express](https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/news/concerns-about-lack-of-funding-plan-for-jerseys-first-womens-health-strategy)*