The Sandyford Health Screen – enhancing service provision within the
community sexual health service in Glasgow
T. Groom, A. Bigrigg, C. Thow
The Sandyford Initiative, Glasgow, UK
Objectives: To ascertain the needs of the attending population in
order to better assign resources and improve services.
Design & Methods: The Sandyford Initiative is a joint sexual
health service which combines family planning (FP) and genitourinary medical
services (GUM) in Glasgow. The Sandyford Health Screen (SaHS) is a voluntary
questionnaire completed by clinical staff on behalf of consenting patients. Its
aims are to document significant social and emotional issues over and above the
primary reason for presentation to Sandyford. Giving an opportunity to highlight,
and improve access to, a wide range of services within Sandyford and locally in
Glasgow. In addition it expects to increase Chlamydia screening, and to provide
information to further develop services. This is an ongoing initiative and is
continuously being evaluated and developed. We will present some of the data we
have elicited over a six month period, April 2003 to September 2003.
Results: 3710 Sandyford health screens were performed between 01/04/03
and 30/09/03, 74% of whom were female.
| Attending Service | FP % | GUM % |
| Women with 2 or more partners in the previous year | 24 | 40 |
| Men with 2 or more partners in the previous year | 64 | 60 |
| Male respondents admitted to never using a condom | 34 | 30 |
| Respondents admitted to having been forced to have sex at some
time |
5 | 1.5 |
| Women expressed concern regarding their menses | 14 | 4 |
| Women expressed concern regarding urinary incontinence | 3 | 3 |
| Women wished to discuss a previous miscarriage, stillbirth or
termination |
5 | 2 |
2% of men wished for further information regarding testicular examination.
2975 Chlamydia screens were performed in the family planning service, as
compared to 1764 for the same time period in 2002. 5.9% of patients screened in
FP were Chlamydia positive, as compared with 4.8% for the same time period for
2002.
Conclusions: The Sandyford health screen has increased the
identification of cases of chlamydia particularly in the family planning setting
and therefore allowed an increase in treatment, counselling, and partner
participation. This gives us the opportunity for education and to reduce the
infective pool within the community. Knowledge of sexual partners and safe sex
also allows targeted health promotion. Numerous issues of concern to clients
have been raised by the Sandyford health screen, and this information is helping
to inform the strategic development of services, in order to provide an
increasingly holistic model of sexual health care.
