The long awaited first Women’s Health Plan for Wales has been launched today (Monday 9 December 2024) with a 10-year strategy to improve healthcare services for women. It makes clear that ‘women’s health’ is broader than gynaecology and maternal health related conditions and aims to address “significant inequalities between men and women” in healthcare.
Research shows that while women live longer than men, they live fewer years free from disability, wait longer for pain relief and many women report having their symptoms dismissed, the Welsh government said. Women’s symptoms, particularly for conditions such as cardiac disorders, asthma, incontinence, and mental health issues, can differ significantly from men, the report warns.
One stark example is the 50% chance of women in Wales receiving the wrong diagnosis after a heart attack. It’s issues like these the plan aims to address. Read more here about how one woman was wrongly told she may be pregnant or have IBS when she had cancer tumour
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As part of the 10 year-strategy £750,000 will be spent on research for women’s health conditions and women’s health hubs will be set up in every part of Wales by 2026. Data collection across Wales, in every service, irrespective of specialism, will be divided by gender and sex, and data will be used to better understand women’s health needs to improve health service provision. For the latest Welsh news delivered to your inbox sign up to our newsletter
The plan, created by the National Strategic Clinical Network for Women’s Health, part of the NHS Wales Executive, sets out how NHS organisations in Wales will “close the gender health gap” by providing better health services for women, “ensuring they are listened to and their health needs are understood”.
It includes nearly 60 actions across eight priority areas to improve healthcare for women throughout their lifetime, based on feedback from around 4,000 women across Wales. Work highlighted from other national strategic clinical networks, such as mental health, musculoskeletal, and diabetes is also included.
Doctors will be “encouraged” to ask women about menstrual health and menopause as part of existing appointments.
The plan, which will be added to over time, includes;
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Menstrual health – create specialist women’s health hubs in each health board to help diagnose menstrual health conditions, increase research and develop further educational materials for everyone, including boys and men.
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Contraception, post-natal contraception and abortion care – Increase online reliable information, collect further data and improve training for use of contraception such as the coil.
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Preconception health – Each health board to have a strategy on helping people to conceive, provide further training and take into account risks including mental health, epilepsy and type 2 diabetes..
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Pelvic health and Incontinence – Improve access to online information, , engage with universities on new research and develop a pelvic floor dysfunction symptom checker.
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Violence against women and girls – NHS Wales to sign up to a ‘sexual safety in healthcare organisations’ charter, consider VAWDASV champions in each health board and further education for all healthcare workers.
In her forward to the report Sarah Murphy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing, said: “Women and girls make up just over 50% of our population. But modern medicine has not always met their needs because it has been based on a “typical male experience” of care, resulting in significant inequalities between men and women. There is a growing body of evidence about women’s symptoms being undervalued, overlooked or dismissed; about women waiting longer than men for pain relief.
“This can have a significant impact on wellbeing because of delays in diagnosing disease, failures to offer effective treatment and poorer outcomes… The health service in Wales must demonstrate competence across all protected characteristics to respond to the health needs of women and girls to reduce inequalities in health outcomes.”
The plan also looks at issues such as ethnicity and income among women and the effects these have on their health. Women of all age groups across Wales are more likely than men to live in deprived areas and while life expectancy for women is 82 years that falls to 78 for the last well off and rises to 84 for the wealthiest.
Being in paid employment also does not necessarily protect women against poverty. Women are more likely to be in working poverty than men.
Launching the report in Cardiff alongside First Minister Eluned Morgan, Dr Helen Munro, Wales’ first lead for women’s health and author of the report, said: “My hope is that the plan will help to raise awareness that women’s health must be a priority. As a clinician, I am acutely aware that services for women in Wales often fall short of what women require, need and deserve – through the implementation of the plan we hope to reverse this.
“Through true collaboration across healthcare systems, by working with the Welsh Government, but most importantly through working together with women we can ensure better health of the 51 per cent.”
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