On 19 May 2026, the Scottish Recovery Consortium contributed to the launch of Voluntary Health Scotland’s (IN)VISIBLE report, which explores the relationship between sex, gender, and health inequalities in Scotland.
Our CEO, Tracey McFall, joined a panel alongside partners from across the sector, bringing insight from SRC’s work in recovery and lived experience. The conversation reflected a shared understanding that inequalities within systems are not isolated issues — they are interconnected, and they shape how people experience support, recovery, and care.
Making inequalities visible
The (IN)VISIBLE report brings together evidence from across the third sector and wider stakeholders to highlight how too many people remain unseen, unheard, and unsupported within health systems.
It makes clear that gender inequalities are not simply individual experiences, but are systemic in nature, requiring coordinated action across policy, services, and communities.
Women in Recovery
This directly connects to SRC’s ongoing Women in Recovery work.
Over the past year, we have been listening to women across Scotland and building a clearer picture of the challenges they face. What women tell us aligns closely with the findings of the (IN)VISIBLE report.
Many describe systems that:
Do not fully recognise the impact of trauma and inequality
Are difficult to access or navigate
Do not reflect their lived realities
At the same time, women consistently highlight what supports recovery:
Safe, trauma‑informed environments
Gender‑specific spaces
Support shaped by lived and living experience
The report reinforces the need to move beyond one‑size‑fits‑all approaches and towards systems that are responsive to women’s lives in all their complexity.
Lived experience as evidence
A key thread running through both the (IN)VISIBLE report and SRC’s work is the role of lived experience.
The report recognises the contribution of third sector organisations in highlighting inequalities that might otherwise be missed.
For SRC, this is central to how we work. Through our Women in Recovery programme, lived and living experience is not something we add at the end — it is what shapes:
The evidence we build
The conversations we host
The changes we advocate for
Building a shared direction
The launch event brought together a wide range of partners, reflecting the scale of collaboration needed to address these issues.
What this moment highlights is the importance of connecting work across sectors.
The (IN)VISIBLE report, alongside SRC’s Women in Recovery work, points in the same direction:
Systems need to become more trauma‑informed
Gender‑responsive approaches must be embedded
Lived experience must be recognised as essential
Inequalities must be addressed at a structural level
Continuing the work
For SRC, this is part of a wider and growing body of work focused on ensuring that women’s experiences of recovery are visible, understood, and acted upon.
The messages coming from different areas — research, policy, and lived experience — are becoming increasingly aligned.
The challenge now is not just to understand these inequalities, but to respond to them in ways that create meaningful, lasting change.
The full (IN)VISIBLE report is now available to read:
👉 https://vhscotland.org.uk/vhs-invisible-report-health-sex-and-gender-inequalities-in-scotland/
