July 2026
FTWW was delighted to be invited to speak at the Ministerial Summit for Women’s Health, held at the Temple of Peace in Cardiff. Members of the FTWW team, alongside two of our Volunteer Champions, attended the event and shared both professional expertise and valuable lived experience.
The First Minister of Wales, Rhun ap Iorwerth MS attended the event, which was chaired by Dame Sue Tranka, Chief Nursing Officer (CNO), who provided the welcome and introductory remarks. The Deputy Minister for Social Care, Mental Health and Women’s Health then gave a keynote speech on the importance of hearing and taking seriously women’s experiences of pain.
Mr Ihab Abbasi, consultant and Chair of the national Gynaecology Implementation Network, spoke about the need to address the normalisation of pain in women’s health services, while Dr Freya Davies discussed current practice and opportunities for improvement in pain relief during IUD fittings. This study, in which FTWW is involved, will include the coproduction of a shared decision-making tool to support patients and healthcare professionals talk about pain management options for these very common procedures.
Two patient representatives from FTWW spoke about their experience of pain during various gynaecological procedures, and the Welsh Government Endometriosis Champion shared her personal account of living with endometriosis. Noreen Blanluet presented on the co-production approach used in developing the NHS Wales Women’s Health Website, and our own Director, Debbie, spoke about the importance of incorporating women’s voices in the design and delivery of healthcare services, including in North Wales’s Gynae Voices forum (you can see more on our website here).
Throughout the event there was a clear commitment to ‘strengthening’ the Women’s Health Plan, particularly hearing patient voices and ensuring those voices are embedded in service development, delivery, and evaluation. FTWW followers will know that this is something in which we believe very strongly, with much of our work aimed at making it a reality.
There was a lot of conversation about equitable care – including access to specialist and tertiary services, including endometriosis, and pelvic mesh, as just two examples. But there was also a great deal of focus – rightly – on the role that healthcare providers can play in identifying and treating women’s pain, so that it doesn’t become chronic in nature. The link between pain and medical trauma was discussed, including where some procedures can make patients reluctant to seek healthcare again and how new innovations and training might help overcome this.
Finally, on the topic of training, several people in the room spoke about the need to increase attention paid to women’s health in medical training, throughout and after qualification. We were pleased to hear strong commitments to activity beyond Summit discussions.
For FTWW, our key takeaways from the event included:
- Fully involving women and patients themselves in ‘what comes next’
- An ongoing, strengthened focus on women’s health across policy areas and sectors
- Attitudinal change, so that neither public nor healthcare professionals see pain as ‘normal’ / ‘acceptable’
- The strong possibility of a follow-up summit in 12 months’ time to see how far the dial on health equity for women and people assigned female at birth has moved.
We look forward to keeping our members and supporters informed – and involved!
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