As part of last year’s London Health Board conference, Healthy London Partnership travelled around the capital to met up with teams across health and social care who are breaking down barriers to deliver the best possible services for Londoners.

Watch our short film with the team involved with bringing Whipps Cross Hospital’s female genital mutilation (FGM) walk-in clinic into fruition, the first of its kind in England, offering cervical screening to women and deinfibulation for those who are living with FGM.

The service is a partnership between Barts Health NHS Trust, Waltham Forest CCG and Waltham Forest Council.

The clinic, run by Barts Health NHS Trust, also gives those affected the opportunity to see an FGM specialist gynaecologist as well as other specialists including a psycho-social practitioner, an FGM specialist midwife and an interpreter.

According to the NHS, there were 5,391 newly-recorded cases of FGM reported in England in 2016-17 with almost half of all cases relating to women and girls living in London.

About the clinic

• The walk-in clinic offers cervical screening tests to women who have experienced female genital mutilation (FGM) at Whipps Cross Hospital. The clinic gives local women the opportunity to use a convenient walk-in service with an FGM specialist gynaecologist, psycho-social practitioner, an FGM specialist midwife, a female FGM trained sample taker and access to an interpreter.
• The clinic also offers psychological support, information and advice and deinfibulation, a minor operation to divide the scar tissue which narrows the vaginal opening. The walk-in clinic will be held on the final Monday of the month from 9am-12pm at the Perineal Clinic, Area A, Outpatients building, Whipps Cross Hospital, Leytonstone, London E11 1NR. 

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