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Community pharmacies are a source of information, advice, products and services for women, as Steve Titmarsh explains…

Women’s health hubs offer a range of benefits, clinical and economic. Nevertheless, it seems government focus on the initiative may be shifting.

Health care professionals have expressed concern about the situation. Perhaps community pharmacists can step in to offer greater support to an important group of clients.

According to some reports, the Government is considering dropping central funding for women’s health hubs even though it announced £25 million of funding in 2024 to create new hubs across the each of the NHS’s 42 Integrated Care Boards.

Integrated Care Boards establishing at least one women’s health hub 

The announcement followed NHS England’s 2024/25 priorities and operational planning guidance requiring Integrated Care Boards to establish and develop at least one women’s health hub by the end of December 2024.1

In reply to a Commons Urgent Question in January 2025, a Government representative in the House of Lords said: ‘There was a target in last year’s planning guidance to roll out pilot women’s health hubs across the country by last December. Today, there are at least 80 hubs, and at least nine out of every 10 integrated care systems have an open women’s health hub.’2

They added: ‘We are not closing these hubs; we are not cutting them. The target to roll them out was in last year’s planning guidance. It was achieved in 93% of integrated care systems, which is why the target is not repeated in this year’s guidance – it has been met in 39 out of 42 areas.’

However, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) was sufficiently worried about the Government’s decision in relation to women’s health hubs that in January it wrote to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in response to reports that the UK Government was considering removing central support for women’s health hubs.3

The letter, signed by RCOG president Ranee Thakar and CEO Kate Lancaster, stated that it has been vocal in its support of the Government’s manifesto commitment to ‘prioritise women’s health’. 3

They said: ‘The College also supports the ambition to move more care from hospitals to communities but urges the Government to recognise that women’s health hubs are an integral enabler to this.

‘The hub model is proven to increase the services women can access in the community and prevent poor health outcomes, with priorities based on local need. Hubs also play an important role in delivering improved efficiency across the system, reducing the number of appointments women need to attend, and increasing the quality of, and reducing variation in, secondary care referrals.

‘Furthermore, they can result in fewer women needing to access emergency services for worsening symptoms. 3

‘For example, the Modality GP service in Birmingham has reduced unnecessary referrals with less than 10% onward referral rate to secondary care, has provided training opportunities for professionals, and crucially has enabled women to access support quickly, delivering up to 1,000 appointments each month.

‘Similar success has also been seen in the Tower Hamlets women’s health hub, with 95% of patients seen within 48 hours with 100% positive feedback from patients and GPs. This is the type of model that the Government should surely be looking to scale up and replicate for other areas of healthcare rather than to withdraw support for.’ 3

Deterioration in women’s health and services

The letter adds that ‘if the Government fails to recommit to women’s health hubs, we fear this will result in a deterioration in women’s health and services, an exacerbation of health inequalities and a missed opportunity to support economic growth’.3

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) explains that ‘women’s health hubs bring together health care professionals and services to provide integrated women’s health services in the community, centred on women’s needs across the life course. They aim to address fragmentation in service delivery to improve women’s health access, experiences and outcomes’. 4

The potential benefits of investing in women’s health are significant economically as well. An additional £1 invested in obstetrics and gynaecology services for each woman in England could generate about £319 million for the economy.

That is equivalent to a return on investment of £11 per woman in England for every additional £1 invested in obstetrics and gynaecology services, according to a recent report by the NHS Confederation, Create Health Foundation and London Economics.5

Core components of a women’s health hub

The DHSC says the following services illustrate some of the potential core components of a hub:4

– menstrual problems, assessment and treatment

– menopause assessment and treatment

– contraceptive counselling

– provision of the full range of contraceptive methods (including long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs)) for both menstrual problems and prevention of pregnancy

preconception care

– breast pain assessment and care

– pessary fitting and removal

– cervical screening

According to the DHSC some of the main benefits of women’s health hubs are:4

– improved access for women and reduced disparities in access to healthcare, quality of care and health outcomes

– reduced unplanned pregnancies

– reduced pressure on secondary care by transferring appointments into hubs

– increased cervical cancer screening uptake

– improved staff training and morale

– wider economic benefits

– emotional benefits for women

Pharmacy role

Community pharmacies have traditionally been a source of information, advice, products and services for women to support their health and wellbeing. Their accessibility without appointment and links with the wider health care team provide women with a convenient access point to a whole range of services and advice available from the NHS.

Ade Williams, Superintendent Pharmacist and Director of M J Williams Pharmacy, lead Pharmacist at Bedminster Pharmacy, Bristol and an independent prescriber, told the Independent Community Pharmacist: ‘I think there are many opportunities for community pharmacy to step forward and support the Government’s Women’s Health agenda with the right commissioning framework and professional ambition.

‘This can be forged by working locally by increasing awareness of the increasing clinical scope, multiple life course and incidental opportunities to deliver care especially for our underserved population and to address unwarranted variation.

‘There is a collation that can help champion our expertise but key is that we register our willingness to step forward and define clearly what we offer.’

Community pharmacists also play a key role in health promotion and prevention initiatives. For example, vaccination services, health screening, smoking cessation and lifestyle counselling. These aspects of the services community pharmacies provide will become ever important with the shift to prevention rather than treatment in health care.

References 

1. Mills and Reeve. Women’s health hub funding to be withdrawn (www.mills-reeve.com/blogs/health-and-care/february-2025/women-s-health-hub-funding-to-be-withdrawn; accessed March 2025).

2. Hansard. Women’s Health Strategy (https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2025-02-04/debates/7FF5E616-5CD5-479E-944C-92CA4BD62A7B/Women’SHealthStrategy; accessed March 2025).

3. Royal College of Obstetricians and gynaecologists. RCOG responds to reports that central support for women’s health hubs will end (www.rcog.org.uk/news/rcog-responds-to-reports-that-central-support-for-women-s-health-hubs-will-end; accessed March 2025).

4. Department of Health and Social Care. Women's health hubs: cost benefit analysis (www.gov.uk/government/publications/womens-health-hubs-information-and-guidance/womens-health-hubs-cost-benefit-analysis;accessed March 2025).

5. NHS Confederation. Women's health economics: investing in the 51 per cent

(www.nhsconfed.org/news/economic-case-investing-womens-health-services-revealed; accessed March 2025).