Women’s health

General practices already provide a lot of women’s health services. However, provision varies between practices. For example, overall, general practices in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire fit more long-acting reversible contraception (coils and implants) than the England average. However, some practices only have one member of staff who is qualified to fit contraceptive devices, which can lead to long waiting times.

We also know that knowledge and experience in providing menopause care varies between clinicians. The Healthwatch report on menopause care experiences highlights where there are gaps in care.

We will deliver

• Improved access to coil and implant fitting.
• Better quality menopause care in general practice.
• A more trauma-informed approach to women’s health services.
• Better signposting to local women’s health services and useful and reliable information to support decision-making and self-management.

How we are doing this

We are working with groups of practices called Primary Care Networks (PCNs) to improve women’s health services.

PCNs are making and implementing plans to improve women’s health care across their practices. PCNs are engaging with their local patients on their plans. Here are some examples of what PCNs are doing:

• Training staff to fit contraceptive coils and implants.
• Working together across practices to run more coil and implant clinics.
• Training staff to fit pessaries.
• Setting up group education sessions on the menopause led by clinicians with expertise in menopause care.
• Running community outreach and engagement events.
• Supporting people who can find it more difficult to have a cervical screening appointment, for example people with Learning Disabilities.

We will also be providing training for PCN staff on trauma-informed practice with a specific focus on women’s health. Watch a video from Healthwatch Essex on trauma and cervical screening. It illustrates why this is so important: Cervical Screening as a Trauma Survivor.

We are collating information on local women’s health services, including voluntary, community and social enterprise services, so general practice staff are better able to signpost people to what is available. We are also collating useful and reliable information on women’s health to help women in decision-making and self-management. Here are a few sites:

NHS England videos on endometriosis

Bristol Menopause Toolkits – information in Arabic, Somali, Punjabi and Urdu

We will work with PCNs to identify and help to address health inequalities in their local population.

Inclusion health is an umbrella term used to describe people who are socially excluded, who typically experience multiple overlapping risk factors for poor health, such as poverty, violence and complex trauma. People in inclusion health groups tend to face significant barriers to accessing and navigating mainstream health services.

We want to improve access to and quality of women’s health services for the following broad groups of people:

1. Migrants in vulnerable circumstances. This includes asylum seekers and refugees.
2. People facing multiple disadvantages. These are people experiencing a combination of problems including homelessness, substance misuse, involvement with the criminal justice system, mental ill-health, and victims of interpersonal violence and abuse.
3. Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller people.

We will deliver

We will deliver local, small-scale interventions to improve health outcomes and reduce health inequalities for these groups through:

• improved access to women’s health information or services
• improved patient experience or quality of women’s health services

How we will do this

We will provide small grants to local organisations or community groups working in Bristol, North Somerset, or South Gloucestershire who have trusted relationships with people in these groups.

We have awarded a first phase of one-off grants from £5,000 to £20,000 to projects focused on reaching migrants in vulnerable circumstances and people facing multiple disadvantages. Find out more about the projects.

We are advertising a second phase of one-off grants from £5,000 to £20,000 for women’s health work with Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller people. We are open to different ways of addressing women’s health needs, including medical and non-medical interventions. We encourage partnership applications, such as a joint application from a larger charity or specialist health service, collaborating with a community group.

Find out more in our grant guidelines and application form

Confident and competent professionals are essential for high quality healthcare. Training and education sessions are an effective way of staying up to date with clinical guidance and best practice. It can also be helpful for professionals to talk and work together across different organisations and specialisms.

We will deliver

We will deliver a more confident, expert workforce with better connection and awareness among those working in women’s health services.

How we are doing this

We are promoting existing free and low-cost training resources and opportunities with our local professionals.

We are funding a Menopause Training Clinic in the menopause service at St. Michael’s Hospital, Bristol (part of University Hospital Bristol and Western NHS Foundation Trust). This clinic is enabling six GPs working in deprived areas to increase their skills in complex menopause care so they can bring this into their general practices.

We are providing online and in-person training and education sessions for healthcare professionals. Topics include:

• Contraceptive counselling and how to support discussions around hormones.
• How to fit pessaries as treatment for pelvic organ prolapse.
• Supporting people with a Learning Disability to access women’s health services.
• Supporting trans and non-binary people to access women’s health services.
• Menopause and mental health.