Aberystwyth has launched a pilot women’s health hub as part of a nationwide rollout aiming to address the gender health gap.

Women’s Health Hub’s aim to bring women’s health care closer to home, making appointments, diagnoses and treatments more accessible.

The hub based in the Padarn Surgery Sexual Health building is the first in Ceredigion, but by March there will be a hub in every health board - Padarn is the first of seven from Hywel Dda University Health Board.

Speaking from the surgery on 29 January, Sarah Murphy, the Minister with responsibility for Women’s Health, said that after a year in the making, she is “buzzing” to see the initiative realised: “It’s a very exciting time and [the clinicians] have done a lot in a short space of time.

“This is an area that needs that focus.

“It’s about putting it in community, where women already go, so they can come here and get an ultrasound instead of being referred and having to wait.

“It’s about access.”

The hubs came out of the Women’s Health Plan for Wales, published last year, based on feedback from 4,000 women across Wales.

The Aberystwyth clinic is GP and nurse-led, offering menopause, menstrual health and contraception services alongside already established pelvic physiotherapy and bladder and bowel nurse-led services.

Each healthboard was given £300,000 to support the development of the hubs.

After research from Hywel Dda found roughly 60 per cent of GPs reported not being confident in treating certain women's health conditions, staff have been given additional training on these issues and ultrasound reading.

This training and new equipment, including ultrasound machines with 3D imaging capabilities, will enable faster access to diagnosis, medication and treatment options for women suffering from issues such as endometriosis or polycystic ovary syndrome.

Mr Alan Treharne, Consultant Gynaecologist at Hywel Dda University Health Board, said the hub will make more routine gynaecological health checks more widely accessible.

He said as an example: “The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Endometriosis documents that the time to diagnosis is still delayed.

“Having access to the new ultrasound machines will advance the diagnoses more quickly.

“[The Women’s Health Plan for Wales] has given drive and momentum, and hopefully that will snowball.”

MS Murphy said: “We’ve lived in a society where for generations women have been fobbed off for things like period pain.

“You’re made to feel like it’s just part of life - you endure it.

“But painful periods can be an early symptom of endometriosis or PMDD.

“It’s a societal shift we need in terms of women’s pain and conditions.

“Within the NHS we’ve got some incredibly passionate, tenacious clinicians who want to give everybody the best care, but 60 per cent of GPs reported they weren’t confident in some of these issues - it’s much better to get the training and sort that out because there’s nothing worse then going to see [a healthcare professional] and feeling like they weren’t taking it seriously.

“This is going to be a huge part of addressing these problems.”