Welsh research grants fund studies on birth, menopause and school support

Studies into hospital transfers during planned births, menopause support in pharmacies and help for pupils who self-harm are among 22 Welsh health and social care research awards announced on 1 October. The published awards total about £5.07 million over their lifetimes. Six are project grants and 16 support researchers at different career stages. The announcement funds work to gather evidence; it does not introduce new NHS services or confirm that a treatment has been shown to work.

A Powys study of transfers during birth

Shelly Higgins, of Powys Teaching Health Board, has received a £299,600 doctoral fellowship for a study of transfers to hospital from planned home births and freestanding midwifery-unit births. Its listed start date is 1 October 2026. The study concerns how those transfers happen. Neither the award nor its title supplies findings about the safety of an individual birth setting, and it should not be used as advice on where to give birth.

The questions the projects will examine

Cardiff University has received £152,694 for work on markers that could help identify infection during pregnancy and labour. A separate £233,652 award supports a study of menopause care through community pharmacies, including whether prescribing hormone replacement therapy for lower-risk women would be feasible, acceptable, safe and affordable. Another Cardiff project, awarded £409,939, will develop an approach to safety planning for pupils who self-harm. Research into how reducing or removing profit from children’s social care could affect children, families and services has received £273,667. The funding also includes a £358,938 Bangor University project on distortion when clinical images are transferred or video consultations are used, and a £488,985 Aneurin Bevan University Health Board feasibility study of a colostomy technique.

How to read the funding total

Adding the 22 amounts listed in the announcement gives £5,065,889.73. That is Cover’s calculation from the published awards, and rounds to £5.07 million. The announcement itself describes the total as more than £5.07 million; the individual amounts do not quite support the word “more”. The money covers the lifetime of each award, rather than a single year’s spending. Start dates also vary: some listed awards began earlier in 2026 and others start in January 2027. It would therefore be misleading to present the entire sum as money being spent, or all the projects beginning, today.