Women’s Health
How do we support women to manage their periods and other women’s health issues (to tackle inequalities in wellbeing, self-management and adverse outcomes from these)?
Why is this important?
A number of key inequalities were identified – see the below data and survey insights for more information:
- Women spend a significantly greater proportion of their lives in ill health and disability when compared with men
- Women’s reproductive health survey conducted in City and Hackney (2500 responses)
- Literature review of inequalities in prevalence, diagnosis and help seeking
- Qualitative research (focus groups and interviews) conducted by a GP on the impact of periods in young people (publication forthcoming)
- Insight from women’s health community clinics (below)
There is an opportunity to build on women’s health community clinics which have been held on menopause, contraception, and menstrual health to include wider services such as domestic violence services, family support, and financial advice.
There is also a need for a non-medical model for the management of several women’s health issues (e.g. menstrual health) that women have told us they would find useful, such as peer support.
Anti-racism work commissioned by the Neighbourhoods programme will be incorporated into this work.
Approach
The MATCH women’s health programme has brought together voluntary partners, clinicians and residents to identify ways to improve fairness in women’s health This was done by reviewing data and insight to identify what are existing needs, what is working well and what isn’t working well. Stakeholders and residents prioritised areas for change, and potential change ideas – and decided which of these we should be taking forward.
Making the change
The following change ideas were identified:
- Support for school pupils
- Continuation of peer support around periods delivered to primary schools with sixth formers: “Well Talk” programme
- Improve information and support within schools e.g. schools period charter
- Inclusion of period support in Super Youth Hubs
- Maximise attendance at existing menopause support including Menopause Cafes
- Review existing information and revise to make information more accessible (use of Health Literacy toolkit); including information on periods, cancer screening, how to manage GPs.
- Support practices to better support women manage their health (existing support via Women’s Health Hub PCN clinicians)
We will be taking forward and funding the following initiatives:
- Peer support with health and wellbeing coaching for those with heavy/painful periods
- Community clinics: testing integrated postnatal midwife-led clinics with different communities