Championing Women’s Health

We will be running a series of sessions for patients in the Autumn, as a result of focus groups and conversations that have taken place with women in Frome in recent months. 

Julie Carey-Downes, our Health Connections Team Lead who is coordinating the focus on women’s health at the practice, said, “In October and November 2024 we held three Focus Groups, engaging with a number of women from across Frome. We also gathered feedback from professionals working in women’s health.

These conversations gave us invaluable feedback on services we currently offer to women and highlighted what other kind of support women wanted to see from us.”

As a result, we developed a new ‘Navigating Menopause’ 6 week group programme, offering education and support to help women feel informed and empowered through the menopause transition. We have also scheduled a calendar of events for the autumn, which focus on topics highlighted during the focus groups, including:

• Cervical Screening Saturday clinics on 13th and 20th September (8:40am to 11:50am), to make it easier for women to book these important appointments. Appointments can be prebooked (the NHS App is the easiest way to do this) or are drop in. 
• A well woman information stand, with lots of information on further women’s health support and resources, will also be held at the practice on 13th and 20th September.
• A series of educational talks, led by GPs from the practice as well as guest speakers, on the most requested topics.
• A dedicated Green & Healthy radio show / podcast, sharing everything happening in the practice and wider community around women’s health.

Meanwhile, existing services, including the Menopause Group Discussions for women considering starting HRT (booking essential, held monthly) and the Young People’s Clinic, offering mental health and sexual health support for 13–19 year olds (weekly drop in sessions, every Wednesday from 3pm to 5pm at the practice), will continue.

Julie said, “This work forms part of our ongoing focus on continuity, where feedback indicates patients want to build consistent, trusted relationships with health care professionals who know their history.” 

“We’ve also listened to the conversations we’ve been having with women over the last few months and we are really pleased to be offering this focus on women’s health during the autumn and beyond. We hope this will meet some of the needs that were identified to us and that people will join in with the many events we’ve got lined up.” 

Educational Talks

Details of the educational talks are as follows: 

• Thursday 2nd October, 6pm to 7pm, Women’s health for the under 25s with Dr Jess Rutherford from Frome Medical Practice 
• Wednesday 8th October,, 6pm to 7pm, Menstrual health and what’s normal with Dr Alice Gallen from Frome Medical Practice 
• Thursday 23rd October, time to be confirmed, Positive periods with Chella Quint, a leading expert on menstruation literacy
• Tuesday 28th October, 6pm to 7pm, Pelvic health session with Joanna Stanton, Pelvic Health Physiotherapist 

More details about all these services and booking links for the events can be found on the practice website here. 

Published: Aug 26, 2025