About the Women's Health Hub pilot

The Women's Health Hub pilot is a collaboration between the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, the Berkshire West Primary Care Alliance, and local heathwatches. The pilot aims to:

• Integrate women's healthcare pathways.
• Increase women's access, experience and quality of healthcare.
• Develop local expertise and leadership in women's health.

The Trust is one of the largest general hospital foundation trusts in England and the main provider of acute and specialist care services for Berkshire West. It provides gynaecology care from its main hospital site in Reading, Brants Bridge in Bracknell, and the West Berkshire Community Hospital in Thatcham. The Alliance is a limited company whose directors are local GPs and whose shareholders are 30 GP Practices across Berkshire West. The three Healthwatch organisations in Berkshire West are the independent champions for people who use health and social care services.

The pilot is funded by the Integrated Care Board from money allocated by the NHS for the establishment of Women's Health Hubs.

We are piloting new services in three Primary Care Networks (PCNs) in Berkshire West, one each in the localities of Reading, West Berkshire and Wokingham. We believe that this approach may be scalable in the future, either across all 17 PCNs in Berkshire West, or at one hub per local authority area.

General practice sits at the centre of our model: it supports women throughout their life course, with a trusted on-going relationship. We believe it is essential not to disrupt or deskill primary care where it is already operating effectively for women.

The pilot is initially focussing on menopause and pessaries.  We are trying different ways to deliver services, including:

• Pessary fitting delivered by a lead practice within each local PCN.
• Women awaiting pessary refitting in hospital given the choice of being seen in a local practice.
• A new Berkshire West Women's Health Service providing more specialist services (initially for menopause) across the PCNs.
• New partnership working between GPs and the the Royal Berkshire, with the hospital providing clinical oversight to the Hub. 

 

As part of pilot, and led by the healthwatch, views of women will be sought on what should be the future design of Women's Health Hubs across West Berkshire, Reading and Wokingham.