The second chapter in the section covering contemporary sexual health services focuses on the
largest sexual health service in Scotland, the Sandyford Initiative in Greater Glasgow and Clyde. This
service pre-empted the first national sexual health strategy for Scotland in its integration of family
planning and genitourinary medicine in 2000, and the chapter details the local conditions that led to this
development, much of which are linked to previous multi-agency working concerning inequalities and
health.
Written by one of the founders of the Initiative (also one of the book’s editors) the chapter reviews
thinking that informed the merger between family planning, GUM and a women’s health service in
Glasgow. It describes how integrating understandings of health and social inequalities into the planning
and delivery of the service was seen as critical, and employed as a vision in bringing staff together to
form one cohesive unit.
Drawing on internal documents and early evaluations of the views of staff and service users at the start of
the service, along with a summary of activity and outcomes since then, the chapter sets out to discover
how successful Sandyford has been in embedding an inequalities sensitive approach since its opening. It
concludes that organisational culture has a high level of understanding about inequalities, and the service
has reached a wider range of service users than before integration, yet the current economic climate may
prove increasingly challenging in ensuring that the ethos continues to remain central.
