FW: Women's Health Champions Education Session Thu, Nov 20, 2025 0:00 - Unidentified Speaker I'm also known as Bernadette. 0:00 - Unidentified Speaker Amy, would you like to just pop up this slide for me? About two minutes have passed. As I say, people still seem to be filtering into the room. I'll have a couple of minutes and then we'll get going. 0:34 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) Monica, are you okay to push record for me? Yeah, no problem. Thank you. 0:52 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) So welcome everyone and thank you for coming along. My name is Monica Fisk, Clinical Network Manager for Gynaecology in South West London. We've been leading a small grants fund which you've all very well done and been successful in getting grants for your organisations to deliver this work, a much needed work. Women's Health. So next slide. So just thought we'd start with a bit of housekeeping. So obviously it's a large group, which is fantastic. We've got nearly over the call 50 already. So rather than going around and doing introductions, we thought it would be better if you want to introduce yourself, just popping your name and the organisation that you've come from into the chat, just so that we know who's here. And again, if you can just stay muted, if you can, again, because we're a large group, and if you'd like to ask any questions, then if you're able to, use the chat function. Of course, if you're struggling with the chat at all, then if you pop your hand up, what we'll do is at the end of each section, we can give over a bit of time to questions and answers, and we'll go through what's in the chat, as if anyone's struggling and wants to put up their hand at that point and they can do it. We are recording the sessions so if you would prefer not to be included in that if you just pop your camera off then that would be great. And the last point is just about being respectful which I'm sure you all will be so it's just mindful that you know it's an open space everyone's experiences and questions matter. 2:46 - Unidentified Speaker And just to be reminded, feel free to ask anything. 2:50 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) No question is a silly question. 2:55 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) Next slide. We've got a number of key objectives today. So the first is to understand common Women's Health issues across their life course. So we're talking about menstruation, menopause and urogyne, which is your sort of bladder and bowel conditions. 3:14 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) key messages about delivering information and Education in the community. Hopefully to help everyone build a bit of confidence to discuss what can be often quite sensitive issues for Women and also to help you understand when Women need to seek help from the NHS and what support you can provide. 3:32 - Unidentified Speaker So next slide. 3:34 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) So what's the role of a Health champion? And that's quite a big question, but we've sort of boiled it down to six key So firstly, it's about being able to act as a trusted community advocate for Women's Health and well-being. It's really, again, about raising awareness about the three conditions, three sort of stages in life and conditions there. So about menstruation, menopause, and we've called it pelvic Health, pelvic floor Health there, because that might be easier for people to understand rather than urogyne. It's about sharing accurate and helpful information. And again, hoping to dispel common myths and stigmas which are present across many communities. And it's about offering peer support, so just being that person who listens, helps encourage open conversations and can signpost Women to the help that they need. And again, it's about connecting Women to their local Health services and support networks. So the groups and sessions that you're running, you know, it might be the first time that Women have been able to speak openly amongst their peers and feel safe to discuss these topics. And, you know, it might be that after the Session they want to keep in contact and they build friendships and a support network around them, which leads on to point six about helping to promote empowerment and confidence in Women and understanding that it's OK to seek help and when to seek out help early as well if they feel that something's not quite right. 5:08 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) So next slide. 5:12 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) So just going to talk through a little bit about the requirements of your grant, and as I say, congratulations to everyone. We had a huge number of grants, I think we had 85 in total, and I think over 16, nearly 70 were approved, so really, really high standard. And it's just to remind the conditions, so as soon as you know the dates of your activities, if you haven't done already I think Sarah's created a spreadsheet and again after the Session we'll share all the details just to sort of let us know the dates, the type of activities that you are planning to run and again really important if you need an NHS clinician it's letting us know so there is a spreadsheet that will be going out for you to add that to so we've got that all held centrally and we know when your activities are. The other important we want to know is who's attended your sessions and how they went and so ideally we want to ask for a couple of photographs from each of your activities or events. Again with the pack after this Session we'll send out a photo consent form so that if you are taking pictures we know that everyone in those photos is happy to to have those photos shared with us and again there'll be a feedback and reporting form which again we'll send out and we just ask that that's completed within two weeks of your event just to tell us information about how many people attended, how they found the Session, the demographics of the people that attended and the topics that you covered because we're really interested to know and how effective they've been within the community because you've all put so much work into them as well. 6:55 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) Next slide. So I'm sure you all know But these are your key contacts. I'm sure these are the people that you've got your successful letters from already. But if there are any issues or anything you want to get in contact with, these would be your main contacts. And again, I'm in touch with all these people regularly as well. So if there's anything that they're not sure of, they can be in contact with me and we'll answer your questions as soon as possible. 7:29 - Unidentified Speaker Next slide. 7:33 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) So there's some key things to do before you start your activities, so getting ready. So the first of those is attending this Session today, which is help you hopefully familiar yourself with the topics that are relevant to your activities. So some of you might be covering a broad range, so covering all groups of Women, or some of you might be focusing more particularly on something like either the menopause or menstruation or the urogyne. So later on in today's talk, Nikki Williams, clinician, local GP in Wandsworth, is going to talk through some of the clinical side and resources that can help you promote conversations with the Women, or you can use the slides as part of your presentations as well. Feel free to spread your word about your activity to make sure you've got lots of Women booked on and that can be via WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, flyers through the local community group. Some of you might be well linked in already and know exactly who's coming to your group so that's fantastic but it's just I suppose it's the key is just getting the word out early so that Women can get it into their diaries and attend. And again just checking in with your voluntary sector leads beforehand just to make sure you know exactly what you need for reporting so that you've got everything ready beforehand and you can be prepared for that. So there's nothing worse than finishing the event and thinking, oh, goodness, we forgot to take a register. How many people attended? What were their names? That sort of thing. So, again, just being being organised in advance of that. 9:13 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) And again, just back to the point again, if you have requested that an NHS clinician, if you can let us know as soon as possible so that we can pair you up and and try and get someone to attend, because obviously our clinicians are busy people with their clinics and so on. So the more advanced warning we can give them, the better. Next slide, please. 9:37 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) So after your activity, again, we want to hear what Women felt about the sessions. So we're quite happy to hear, you know, any sort of patient and feedback if they're happy to to do that. There's direct quotes from people who've attended the sessions and what they got out of it are fantastic. The sheet and the links here, but again we'll post that out after, is just a quick summary of the activity, how many people attended and the demographics of the people who attended. As we've said here, just a couple of quotes about the activity. Did they feel that they've learned something thing? What did they learn that they didn't know beforehand? And what might they do differently in future based on the information that you've given? And as I say, ideally two photographs that just depict your Session and what you did and who was there. Again, feel free to post any photos on social media. Again, I'm just tagging the ICB and these are the sort of tags here that you can use. Again, making sure you've got consent from the Women attendees that they're happy to do that. But as I say, the link to this form will be sent out, so you'll have all that in advance of your sessions. 11:01 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) And this is just another document that we'll send out. Again, it's a lot to go through in this Session, so we'll send that on for further reading. But it's just a document that was put together by the ICB around having confident conversation and gathering meaningful insight. So again, it's about listening to the communities and helping us to understand their perceptions and their experiences. As I say, when we spoke to a lot of these Women previously in the last piece of work we did, they felt that, you know, they weren't often dismissed by Health care professionals and not listened to. So that's really why we wanted to do this next piece of work and build Health Champions into the community so that hopefully they feel that they've got a point of contact, they're being listened to and know where they need to go for help. So this guide's just really to help you have confident conversations and gather meaningful insight. As I say, it's fairly lengthy, so we don't want to go through it page by page today. But the next couple of slides are just some of the key elements that might help from that document. 12:09 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) So some of The key conversation tips, I would say, are just trying to listen to Women without appearing either embarrassed or judgmental at all. Because as I say, from the previous work that we've done with Women, a lot of them have felt that way, especially when they've maybe gone to their doctors or gone to hospital, that their problem is a silly problem. It doesn't matter. It's just about being a woman. So we're trying to break that down and give them an open place to discuss their feelings. And what's happening to them without any of that. 12:43 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) Again, it's just being mindful about the language. So again, in a lot of communities, using the phrase people who menstruate might be more appropriate than saying Women, particularly with LGBT groups and so on. And again, for a lot of Women, it's just normalising words like menopause, periods, menstruation, because they're often taboo or not spoken about within their communities and just making it sort of natural and not embarrassing. Excuse me a second. 13:20 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) I think the next important bit, which is very important, is you're absolutely not there to diagnose these Women. It's all about listening and signposting. So if a woman comes to you and says, you know, I've had really heavy periods what should I do about it then the advice would be to seek some medical help not to try and diagnose yourself so we we don't want anyone to think that you you have to diagnose anyone it's all about listening and signposting appropriately and again we've at the end of this pack and what will be sent out to you after is a vast amount of information and resources that you can signpost Women to from reputable organisations that are NHS approved that have videos, leaflets and so on about Women's Health. And again, before your sessions, you might want to print some of these off and have them available or have the links so that Women can use them. So again, as I say, it's about open conversation. So we've got an example here of the sorts of questions that you might want to have as an opener. So, as you say, lots of people find periods uncomfortable. Have you spoken to your GP about how it's affecting you? And that hopefully prompts a woman to think, well, no, I haven't actually, maybe I should make an appointment. And, you know, you're taking the woman seriously as well. Well. 14:49 - Unidentified Speaker So next slide. 15:00 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) So this is just another model which can be quite helpful to use if you're having conversations with Women. So it's about asking them. It's called the three A's. So the first is ask and it's taking the have an open conversation. So that might be, again, I know a lot of you are doing other activities, so maybe a craft or a sort of dance Session or whatever with the Women. So it's getting Women relaxed and taking the opportunity just to to bring up some of these conversations rather than, you know, in a way that people feel comfortable. And then it's assist. So in light of your understanding and assessment, it's just offering some information briefly and this says advice but again that advice wouldn't be sort of medical advice it would be to contact a GP or we've got some leaflets here that might help you and again just making sure it's personalised to the audience and tailored and appropriate so the advice to if you've got a group of young girls and their teens might be very different to a group of older Women sort of menopause and post menopausal Women. And then the third A is acting. So again, it's encouraging Women to use the self-care tools and resources that we are going to share with you, signposting them to services and just, I suppose, clarifying the next steps and making sure that they're aware that there's nothing to worry about, you know, that most of the time it's the easy fixes. It's nothing sinister that's wrong, but it's important to get those things checked out. 16:45 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) So this slide just talks through some of the sort of things to be aware of when you're opening conversations. So I suppose it's very easy to default into giving advice. So into that, especially if it's something that you've experienced or has happened to you. So it's easy to go, oh, you know, if I were you, I would do X, Y and Z. And it's just trying to avoid that. Or as well, that you're not persuading people. So you're not sort of trying convince them that oh you must go on HRT it'll change your life you know you really I know you don't want to but you you know HRT is what you need to do so it's avoiding that type of conversation. 17:24 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) Another common pitfall particularly if you're sort of addressing topics that Women might feel embarrassed about discussing is avoiding questions when you're trying to open up a conversation is avoiding that yes no answer so you want to ask open questions where you can rather than sort of closed questions where they can give just a very brief answer because then it might get difficult to open up that flow. So it's trying to just frame that appropriately and again I think there's some examples in the document that we'll share out afterwards. 18:04 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) So hijacking, that's another one. Of the quite common ones. And again, I think it comes from quite a meaningful place. So that's where someone says, oh, you know, I've been having a problem with painful periods, and it's hijacking that and go, oh, yeah, I've got that problem, too. I've done this, this, and this. And you're not giving that space for the woman to open up and give her views and opinions. And often, this is the one that comes from, as I say, very meaningful, we're trying to be helpful. By being relatable and giving your experience, but often it's just being aware of that and just opening up and letting the Women sort of talk through their experiences and how they felt. Again, it's absolutely not wanting to lecture people. So, you know, again, it's being open and non-judgmental in the way that you're talking, which is, again, a key point here. Even if someone says something that might sound quite shocking, it's trying to not show that and just sort of be open and calm with those people. And again, really important in this situation in particular is dismissing, oh, you know, it's nothing, don't worry about it, it's fine, it's just being a woman. As I say, because that is one of the key findings that we found from previous work of how a lot of our local Women have felt when they present with Women's Health issues. 19:43 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) Another very important part of this is sometimes you might be the first person that someone's felt confident in opening up to, so it might be that they haven't got a community around them or felt that they can disclose to you. So if anyone, child or adult, opens up to you to say that they're being physically, emotionally or sexually abused and exploited in any way, again it's not for you to sort of tackle this problem alone but we thought it'd be useful just to have some of the key contact numbers within your local council to get in contact with to help provide support and guide you or the Women that you see what to do because, as I say, often, you know, if people haven't got a supportive community around them, you know, or it's the time they're away from their husband or their family environment, they may well open up in a way that they haven't done previously. But absolutely, don't try to tackle that yourself. Always get in contact with these safeguarding teams here that are listed. And obviously, if it's an think anyone's at immediate harm, then always call 999. So don't let it, you know, drag on. But as I say, it can happen. So it's just being aware. 21:11 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) And this is just, again, about the consent to photography. So we can skip that slide. 21:19 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) So with the photos, we've just included some examples of what we would class as good photos of your events, so ideally if you can is either get photos of people taking part in activities, so again if you're doing a Session that involves dance or a craft, we really want to see the Women getting involved with those sessions and enjoying themselves hopefully. We want to see everyone's faces ideally, not the back of heads, and ideally just showing the sort of number of people and the types of people that have attended your group. They can be a mixture of posed ones, as we can see here, we've got a couple of sort of posed where everyone's smiling at the camera or where people are engaged in the activity or sort of coffee morning or whatever. Again, landscape or portraits, fine, whatever you feel works best. But again, it's just making sure that you've got good lighting, take lots of photos of your event rather than sort of at the end, getting to the end and thinking, oh goodness, I need to take one. And then, you know, people are looking all different ways, have their eyes closed and so on. So if you've got someone even dedicated to that throughout the Session to sort of go around and take photos, that would be great. And again, just making sure that there's no sort of clutter in the background, so sort of boxes or overflowing bins if you've had a coffee morning and that's in the background. It's not so ideal, but yeah, these are some lovely pictures from previous events that have taken place. 22:56 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) So these are examples of photos that are less ideal. So in the first one here, it's, again, it's not very clear. That could be any event, could be a local car boot sale. It's very difficult to, yeah, know what's happening on those stalls. It'd be much nicer to have a sort of up of the stalls or that truck that's there that's obviously, you know, giving some advice to people there. Equally with the other one, we've got no idea what's going on there. We've got the sort of someone's head cut off and then some words on a screen which could say anything or could be anywhere. So, as I say, it's not very visually clear what's going on there and how many people attended. Try to avoid that kind of thing if you can. 23:43 - Unidentified Speaker OK. 23:45 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) So that's the sort of end of the being a Health champion. The next section is going to go on to cover, you know, menstruation, menopause and urogyne. So it might be worth to stop and just take a breather there and just see if there's any questions in the chat. 23:59 - Unidentified Speaker I think I saw quite a few coming through. 24:02 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) You want me to pull them off a bit for you, Monica? 24:05 - Unidentified Speaker I've been having a look as we go along. 24:09 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) There's a few questions around photos so in here and maybe we need to just perhaps in the pack when we send it later give a bit more detail on photos. So just going through sorry there's a lot of names so I'm just pull it going back. 24:30 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Just that some people might agree to have to a photo but might not want it on social media, is that okay? There's one, they will want to know what happens to the photos after they're shared with partners, so like with South West London ICB, so can we know what will happen to the images after? And then one from more about school settings so in school setting we can't get a full photo consent can we take an action shot from behind? 25:09 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) Yeah I think as well the school in particular it's whatever their policies are is making sure it's abiding by them so understandable where children and young people are involved that you know either taking a photo of the setup of what the activity is going to be or say backs of heads is an absolutely fine. 25:31 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) There's one and things that they also and I'm sure you're going to say anonymous photos so where we don't show faces so vulnerable Women yeah and another about social media. 25:43 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) Yeah and again that's the the point of the the form as well as just absolutely we need to get permission from Women so anyone who doesn't want to be included either ask them to step out of the photo or blurring them out of the photo so that they're not shared. The photos again, they'll be, you know, kept on secure files, they wouldn't be shared any wider. They would all be sort of secure files or, you know, gotten rid of our end after. But again, it's just making sure you've got the consent and if someone doesn't want to be involved, then absolutely, you know, make sure that they just step out of the photo. Likewise, if people don't want to be shared in social media, you know, there's no pressure to do so. And as I say, if it's a particularly vulnerable group that you're working with, if they don't want to, you know, photos of them, then, as I say, set up or, you know, of the venue and the activity is absolutely fine as well. 26:49 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) And then, can we still request a clinician? 26:53 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) Yeah, yeah and just let us know what the Session and the timing is and we can try. As I say we can't 100% guarantee but we absolutely try our best to set up people with clinicians and again that's the reason we're asking for as much notice as possible just to help you find somebody. 27:16 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) And then could the PowerPoint be shared? 27:19 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) Yeah this will all go out along with the additional information as well so you've got it. 27:26 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) And then I don't mind designing my own social media template but do you have a social media template for us to use to promote our events? 27:35 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) I'll take that back to our comms team they probably do have some bits that you can use so I'll pass that one back to them and if there's anything particularly again we can share with this pack. 27:50 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) if you've laid that out within the grant application. 27:53 - Unidentified Speaker So I think most of it, it's just, most of you, it's one Session. 27:57 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) I know some people are doing more of a series of events, but whatever you put in your app. How many sessions or events do we need? Application is what we'd be asking for. 28:12 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Do they need to be a clinician to run the sessions from the NHS? 28:17 - Unidentified Speaker Absolutely. 28:18 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) not. And as I say, that's the purpose of this Session and giving this information is that you on this call are our Health Champions. So again, you know, more than happy for you to be signposting, sharing the slides within this pack and any of the additional resources as well. 28:38 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Do we need to use NHS logos or pre-approved leaflets? 28:44 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) Logos wise, I'll double check that one but I don't think so for you if it's through your organisation but as far as leaflets we would prefer if it's information that's shared with this PAC or NHS because again we just know from you know we know it's fact-checked and it's the correct information that we would be getting so ideally are the information from this pack or NHS leaflets, please. 29:21 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) And should we arrange payments for the NHS team if they come to a Session? Yes, I think it's agreed. 29:32 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) Again, the same for both virtual or face-to-face as well, because it's more of a token rather than you know a payment if that makes sense. 29:45 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) How do we contact a clinician to arrange for them to attend? 29:51 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) So I know some people already have clinicians that you work closely with and that's that's fine otherwise again we're going to send out a spreadsheet basically and if you can write in it what the date of your your Session is and the time and the location and if you require or would like to request an NHS clinician, and then we can try and pair you up with someone from the local community that way, rather than, we sort of talked about having a list of clinicians, but it could be difficult. We would run the risk of one or two clinicians maybe being contacted multiple times and sort of overwhelmed. So we thought it'd be easier to manage it the other way. So let us know if you need one and we can find someone suitable. 30:37 - Unidentified Speaker Okay. 30:38 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) going to go into the virtual room now for a bit. 30:44 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) yoga. Just going to hand. I think you're on mute. 31:01 - Unidentified Speaker We were off just then. 31:14 - Unidentified Speaker Shall we go to Soran? 31:16 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Apologies if I don't pronounce it correctly and come back to you, I'll go and leave. 31:23 - Unidentified Speaker Good afternoon everyone. 31:29 - Soran SADQE (Student)2 Pretty much, I can see that I've got most of my answers from the questions previously, all from the chat, and you answered most of them. The only thing regarding the problem I have now, a picture was in hand, because most of the Women, they don't like to take the picture, go on the social media, and think, because they're going on for this time, one was AI one, they ask people the AI kids in the any films or anything like that so I just looking for on social media different pictures randomly so I think I do understand the families that point was it from back side of the room you can take the picture I think that'd be more safer than be face showing and that's my questions and nothing else thank you much yeah As I say, absolutely, there's no obligation to 32:30 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) post on social media as we know a lot of people, you know, maybe don't want to be included in that, but also if people are happy to have their photo taken then, you know, they can sign the consent form. Otherwise, you know, sort of by the back of the heads, not at all, or if as a group people feel vulnerable in the and don't want to be taken then, but they're happy to do a back of the head shot, then that's fine as well. As I say, it's going with Women. No one should be pressurised into feeling that they need to be included in a photo. We know some of the groups that you are working with are particularly vulnerable. So yeah, as I say, even if it's a picture with nobody's in the photo, or even if it's just people who are leading the sessions, so the Health Champions and clinicians as well, then that's another option that might work better with some groups. 33:36 - Unidentified Speaker Excellent. 33:37 - Unidentified Speaker When can we get the package? 33:44 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) The slides and so on, so you should have them out by Monday or Tuesday next week at the latest. 33:50 - Unidentified Speaker this next week? 33:53 - Unidentified Speaker Yes yeah okay yeah thank you thank you. 33:58 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) I think that's all the questions if we've missed any let me just double check yeah so I think it's a lot around photos still so yeah have we got any more hands we've got one more hand. EMC3. 34:21 - EMC32 Yes, hi, good afternoon to everyone. I have two queries. One is, I know that by 31st of March we have to finish the project. Can we do like a February, March, like that? Because I will be on holiday January. Can we do that February? 34:47 - Unidentified Speaker Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you so much. 34:51 - EMC32 And the last one, do we have to use your constant photo constant form or we can use our? 35:00 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) I think again, I'll double check with our comms team. I think it needs to be ours because they'll just double check and we can add that to a sort of FAQ. 35:12 - Unidentified Speaker Q section that we can send out with these slides as well. Thank you so much. 35:19 - EMC3 Thank you. That's it. Okay, bye. 35:23 - Unidentified Speaker Any other questions? 35:25 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) yoga, I can see your hand's still up. 35:27 - Unidentified Speaker Sorry, sorry. That's okay, don't worry. 35:30 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) I'm just checking you haven't anything else. That's all. Okay, so shall I move? Oh, we've got another hand. 35:41 - Senjuti 2 Yeah, hi, I'm from Bija Dance. 35:47 - Senjuti So I'm from Bija Dance and we run a music and movements therapy class with the ladies. So regarding the activities we do, the ladies are very happy to do performances and we do have videos and pictures of them so I just wanted to double check that these other things which will be needed like videos and pictures of maybe their classes or performances. 36:26 - Unidentified Speaker Yeah no that'd be fantastic yeah as you say we want to see the breadth of activities that are happening so that would be yeah perfect. 36:37 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) I think there's another question, someone's just popped in the chat around if they can't get a GP to attend, can they invite an NHS nurse? Absolutely, as well. Yeah, no problems with that. 36:56 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Yeah, and ICB is the Integrated Care Board, so that's the NHS body that has led the grant scheme. That's right isn't it Monica? Yeah. Another hand, oh it's gone down again. I don't know whose hand it was. I wasn't quick enough if you want to ask a question. Martine? 37:25 - Unidentified Speaker Martine? 37:28 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) don't know if you still want to ask a question. Do you just want to quickly, I'm going to cut up, someone just do the questions, I'll be back in one second. 37:55 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) Palma, I can see a hand. 37:59 - Palma Black3 Hello there, so apologies for joining so late. I am so snowed under. Is this meeting being recorded? Can I watch it afterwards? 38:11 - Unidentified Speaker It is being recorded, yeah, absolutely. 38:14 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) And there's also a thinking Session being planned for January as well for those that either can't attend today or need to leave early or again if you just want a refresher then there'll be a second Session as well but yes the recording will go out along with the slides and information so don't worry. Wonderful thank you very much. Martine? 38:51 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Shall I start on the next section and then people if people put questions in the chat maybe. 39:00 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Does that sound good? That sounds good, yeah. Okay, so hi everyone, so I'm Nikki Williams, I'm a GP in Wandsworth in Battersea and I am the primary care, so the GP, so thinking about Women's Health as community lead for gynecology in South West London but I also am the Women's Health Champions for South West London for the ICB which as we mentioned before is the NHS body that commissions Health services for South West London. I wasn't going to go through all of these slides in detail but I'm happy to, if people feel at the end that they would want more explanation on the slides, then I can absolutely do that. What I'm very aware of is that Women's Health is a lot more than just menstruation, menopause and pelvic Health problems, but we would want, these are probably the three main issues that Women have, so we wanted to concentrate on these three areas. Women's Health is much more holistic than that and actually you know being healthy is probably one of the biggest things we want to try and promote for Women is to look after themselves because that then enables them to be in a position to look after others, to go to work, to do all the things that they want to do and so part of it as well is promoting you know healthy living. One of the biggest risks factors. So causes of people having gynecology problems is if Women are overweight and things like that. So we, you know, it's important that we reiterate that. But as I said, we're going to be wanting to focus on these three main areas. So menstruation is bleeding that happens. So it's periods. And I think people sort of failed to recognize you know periods are a huge part of Women's life and I can't see everyone on the screen but I imagine most people on here are Women there are a few men I've heard some a male voice but you know there aren't many things that happen to people as often as period so you know if you think about the fact you have a period once a month so year 12 for about 40 years of a woman's life that's a lot of period and if those periods are very heavy or cause a lot of pain and that goes on for two to three days every month, that's a little time out of someone's year, that's almost a month of the year where some Women can't function, can't do what they need to do. So what we discovered on the previous work we were doing was that there's a lot of variation in the understanding of periods and what periods are and we shouldn't assume that people learnt at school the basics about periods and we need to make sure people do understand what they are, what they mean, that they are normal part of menstrual cycle and there's some of the detailer here. Next slide please. 42:38 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) And then there's some things that come around periods. So I mentioned heavy periods and period pain. There is also premenstrual tension or syndrome. So there can be mood changes, tiredness, tender breast, headache and bloating that usually occur before a period and get better when a period actually hums and then there are some simple things that people can do to support your periods like hot water bottles, gentle exercise, rest, over-the-counter pain relief. What I wanted to try, next slide please Amy, and then this is heavy periods and gives you a bit of detail about you know what's a normal period and what isn't. So you know it is not it is you know every woman bleeds well most Women bleed once a month when they're not pregnant and they're not on contraception that stops them bleeding but your bleeding should be manageable and if you you know if you are bleeding for leaking through your clothes if you're having to change your pads or tampons more than every one to two hours If you're having to wake up during the night to change it, if you're seeing large blood clots, then that's not normal. And you know, so if it is affecting your day-to-day life, then that's not normal. And these Women should seek some advice from their GP or other healthcare professionals. Next slide. 44:19 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) And then we talk a bit about irregular periods of what that would be, periods as well and when people should seek help. Next slide. And then this is a bit of details of when people should seek help. Next slide. I'm going to stop here for a second because, Amy, do you mind taking down the slides for one minute? Is that all right? Because I'm going to share a video now because I think it probably illustrates better than I can. A little bit of what I mean about periods and you know how Women suffer and how people take a long time to get the help they need. This comes from a campaign called Just a Period and probably stems from some of the feedback that Women were similar where Women are just told it's just a period that it's one of those things and you just have to put up with it. Bear with me a second and please tell me if you can't see this, Monica, if you could just tell me if it doesn't share or that there isn't sand. Apologies, I'm just trying to get it up. Is that there? Can people see that? 45:38 - Unidentified Speaker Yeah. 45:49 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) The sound's not coming through, but the pictures and the subtitles are. 45:58 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Sorry, is the sound not coming? 46:00 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) No. 46:00 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Shall I try again? It was earlier, wasn't it, when we practiced? 46:08 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Try again and see. 46:10 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) There's subtitles, at least, that talk through it. 46:14 - Unidentified Speaker It'd be nice if it would. 46:19 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Just see if I can get it to share the sound. 46:27 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Is it coming through now? 46:35 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) No. You can still just see the video. 46:50 - Unidentified Speaker you Sorry, I'll unshare. 48:43 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Apologies for my lack of IT. I'll just take out of that. 48:53 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) I'm getting rid of that, sorry. 48:55 - Unidentified Speaker Apologies. 48:58 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) But I think that hopefully that illustrated, I know apologies you couldn't hear the sound. Did everyone able to Read the subtitles all right? 49:09 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) But what I was hoping that illustrates is what I'm trying to say about periods is to try and get people to understand they don't have to and shouldn't be living with very heavy painful periods, not able to go to school, not able to go to work, not able to get out and do what they want to do every month and we as healthcare professionals can help them and we want to be able to empower Women to understand that if they are told it's just a period that's not acceptable and you know I suppose as Health Women's Health Champions is to help to empower them to get the help they need. Do we want to do some questions around that first and then I can move on to menopause? 50:03 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) I think there's a few questions just about sharing the video so again yeah we'll share that with the pack because it might be quite useful to share with your Women's groups as well. I know the sound didn't seem to come through for everyone there. 50:19 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Yeah and I think one of the links we will be sharing is that Wellbeing for Women website because it's got a lot of very useful information to be able to share so that will be one of the resources we'll share with the video on but absolutely we can share that link because I think it is quite powerful to illustrate what we've I can see Margaret, you've got your hand up. Yes. 50:46 - Margaret Thomas2 Is there anything about mood swings? Because this is something that Women might find, you know, is becoming a problem. 50:57 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Yeah, and we can, yeah, so when I'm, sorry, I'm aware I just touched on things very, very quickly because I didn't want to sort of give a lecture. But yeah, absolutely, the premenstrual syndrome and the mood swings. We can we will provide some information on that as well and actually that is a true you know is a real problem that some Women have so absolutely we want to it's part of it yeah any other questions um pharmacists absolutely I can see in the chat that absolutely we can signpost to pharmacists and actually we are doing a project at the moment around menopause and pharmacists and upskilling them to have conversations because we want people to be able to go to any healthcare professional that they feel comfortable going to if they don't want to go to a GP and there is a lot of we there's some specific questions around sanitation products and things like that we can provide information on all of that so that you can share that. 52:21 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Young Women there are some stuff that yeah we will we'll look at all of these and make sure we try and provide a breadth of resources around periods and menstruation Were there any other specific questions? Please do put your hand up if you've got any questions. 52:37 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) I think there's a few more in the chat, just one around facilitators who can discuss fibroids and endometriosis with attendees. 52:51 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Yep, and we can absolutely, you know, what we can do is when we provide clinicians, pretty much all of them will be able to discuss common Women's Health issues such as fibroids and endometriosis. 53:07 - Monica Fisk (NHS South West London ICB) And then more about our young people are creating a video we will do our own desktop research but do you have a list of resources for young Women and video support sites so that we can signpost to existing things and I can answer that that yes we'll have that included in our pack of resources as well some ones that are particularly good, especially for younger Women. 53:38 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Yep, and then anything else on that? We've got some hands, haven't we? EMC3? 53:47 - EMC32 Yes, I'm here. Sorry, my camera. 53:52 - Unidentified Speaker Is it true? 53:54 - EMC32 Yeah, is it true? You have menopause you always feel hot always feel hot a little bit irritated and you cannot sleep properly is it true? 54:07 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Absolutely so I'm going to come on to menopause in just a second and I will change so it's not all Women will but a lot of Women will feel hot feel irritated and have a whole heap of symptoms with menopause absolutely some Women are lucky and go through it and have no symptoms. Some Women probably don't tell us they have symptoms so we think they don't have any but they're living with them and don't recognize that actually it's the menopause that's causing those symptoms. 54:37 - Unidentified Speaker Thank you, thank you so much. 54:40 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Celestina, Celestina sorry my apologies. 54:46 - Celestina Oniye-Thomas2 It's fine, hi Celestina from Floating Counselling. The workshop have to deliver does NHS professionals have to be in each of them or can we just sign post people to them? 55:00 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) No you don't need to absolutely if it you know sometimes when we've done previous pieces of work before groups have told us that maybe that's not helpful to have someone there and that people may be more open with that and absolutely it's you for you to decide if it would be helpful to have someone there. 55:22 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Sanctuary for Sister, I saw your hand was up and then it went down, I don't know if you had a question? 55:29 - Sanctuary For Sisterhood Zak Yeah, this is for like the younger generation. As a youth worker, a lot of girls will say that they have bad periods, teachers don't believe them, thinking that they're skiving off school. What advice can these young girls say to their teachers that they are suffering from bad period pains and heavy periods? 55:56 - Unidentified Speaker So I think I suppose the first thing I would say and I would say this as a GP is that if they are having to miss school because of heavy painful periods that they should see a doctor about it or some healthcare professional they can go to a pharmacy or go and see the practice nurse because periods shouldn't mean you can't go to school. If having heavy painful periods as teenagers is incredibly common and we can also provide them with support so they can take something to their teachers and stuff to say you know this is a real thing please make allowances for it. Yeah I was really talking about doing physical PE. 56:42 - Unidentified Speaker That's what I was talking about. 56:45 - Unidentified Speaker They will be at school, but it's just the physical PE, swimming and that kind of thing. 56:51 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) And, you know, and I think it's potentially through this, it may be that we need to do some, find some educational material for teachers in schools, so we actually educate them about how, you know, periods affect a girl's ability to do PE and things like that. I totally agree, yeah, so it may be that we need to find some stuff to educate them rather than having these poor girls having to feel like they've always got to find the excuse. 57:24 - Unidentified Speaker Yeah. 57:30 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Just going through some of the questions. Yoga, did you have a question? 57:33 - yoga 1 I just know your hand is still Yeah it's okay all the information are very good but I don't know how to contact for the practice. It's very difficult for me. 57:49 - Unidentified Speaker To contact your GP practice? 57:58 - yoga 1 Yeah no for the workshop any specialist yeah anyone want to come and do it, not every class, once in a month, they will pop in and do it. We can't do these ones with the HIV, but professionals come and do it from the NHS. 58:27 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) To help to make those links for you. Okay okay yeah when we make the leaflet can you can I send it to you yeah you can send yeah yeah so we I think we'll um I don't know Monica how we're planning to do that okay yeah thank you thank you um we get asked about getting the Health information in different languages so I think we're trying to find as much information different languages to be able to do that. 59:04 - Unidentified Speaker Okay, we can do it in English. We can manage to translate that one. That is not a problem. But the translational way is good. 59:18 - yoga 1 We have been paying for periods. 59:22 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) That is a large So heavy, painful periods can be, in young Women, there can be no underlying cause. So if people are having heavy, painful periods that are affecting their daily life, we absolutely wanted to see Women so that we could do some tests to diagnose. You saw on that video there was something about Could a regular period affect their ability to get pregnant? I think that's probably what we could do. 1:00:39 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) the test to understand what's causing that. Have we got any more? 1:00:54 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Shall I move on? Do you want to put the slides back up again Amy and then people can, if you think when you were in your early teens. 1:01:15 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) I just saw Martine's hand go up, sorry. 1:01:24 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Did you want to comment? 1:01:30 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) My team figured out to do with the issues with parents is thinking about the other end of people's mental life. So this is, menopause is the natural end of your mental period. 1:02:20 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) bleeding and the ovaries start releasing eggs and they start to produce less of the hormones that Women commonly have, so estrogen and progesterone. 1:02:46 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) people start to get to the menopause. They start noticing that their periods are changing and not the same. So they've always had a regular period. It's always come every 28 days and it's always been fairly similar. And then they start, people start to fall asleep again. On the subsequent slide it will show you that there's loads of other symptoms and then of course itself some of the people it's actually completely stopped but some of those symptoms illustrators that it can be quite a long time that Women are suffering. So you know, often the premenopausal starts at about 40, the periods stop somewhere between 45 and 55, but you can have symptoms affecting a due to the reduction in the hormones that they are now getting and also don't know that there are things that can be done to help. 1:04:25 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) Next slide please. 1:04:36 - Nicola Williams (Wandsworth CCG GPs) moon changes, irritability and anxiety. Women will describe to me that they are quite confident and life managed.