Women's Health Network
A network of people interested in improving health and care services for women
in Suffolk and North East Essex!
How our network began
In July 2022, the UK government launched a Women's Health Strategy. This 10-year plan aims to transform women's healthcare by improving access to services, addressing specific health needs, and ensuring the system listens better to women's voices. A key element of the strategy is the creation of new women's health services across England. Suffolk and north east Essex is fortunate to be part of this initiative, receiving funding to establish an offer specifically for our region.
To develop the best possible services for our community, we established a Women's Health Insight and Oversight Group (I&O Group) comprising over 160 members representing over 60 different organisations and community groups across our geography to lead our programme. The Group committed to co-producing as much of the programme as possible. This started with co-producing a set of targeted engagement questions for different demographics within our community to help us start our local service development process. We had over 1,200 responses to our engagement which provided the Group with valuable information to ensure whatever services we designed reflects what is important and valuable to our population.
Using these insights the Group were able to co-produce a series of possible options, then voted on what options we should take forward into development. We decided to develop:
- A Women’s Health App - App poster link
- Virtual Menopause Group Clinics - Virtual Menopause Group Clinics information link
- GP Practice Menopause Champion Training
- Provision of vaginal ring pessaries in the community
- Provision of long-acting reversible contraception for HRT and heavy menstrual bleeding in the community
- GP Education and Training on Women’s Health
The co-production journey did not end there. The I&O Group co-produced the service descriptions for each of the projects, supported with testing and development and also co-produced all of the evaluation methods so we can understand if our projects have made a difference to the population of Suffolk and north east Essex. All of our projects are now live, and we are continuing to monitor the difference they are making. Thank you to everyone who has been involved, shared their opinions and stories and been part of journey to improve the health and wellbeing of women and girls across Suffolk and north east Essex.
Please see the attached report to learn more about what we did together --->
Being part of the network
Although the Women's Health I&O Group regular meetings have now come to an end, we have the opportunity to keep and grow the membership. You can use the forms below to:
- Sign up to join
- Take part in specific opportunities
Requesting a network meeting or communication
Perhaps you have a resource to share with the network, or wish to meet with the group for discussion about a particular topic? Please contact Su Conquer, Co-production Lead, SNEE Integrated Care Partnership: su.conquer@snee.nhs.uk
