Women's and girls' experiences of health and care

We wanted to:

• Identify barriers or challenges to accessing health or care services
• Identify changes to improve experiences
• Explore women and girls’ preferences around receiving information on health and care services
• Explore preferences in relation to women’s health hubs

188 people shared their experiences with us.

This report provides a countywide overview of the findings, as well as breakdowns for key data from the five ICT areas: Eastbourne Borough, Hastings Borough, Lewes District, Rother District and Wealden District.

This activity was funded by an NHS Sussex Working with People and Communities small grant 2024-25. We reported the survey findings back to NHS Sussex in June 2025.

What we heard

We heard about some of the key barriers that prevent women and girls from accessing healthcare services. These include:

• A lack of flexibility in appointment times
• Worries about not feeling listened to
• Negative past experiences

Almost 1 in 10 women reported ‘never’ feeling listened to while using health and care services in the last 12 months.

Women told us that better booking systems, easier-to-access appointments, being able to address more than one issue in the same appointment, and knowing who they were going to see in advance would make it easier for them to attend.

When asked about communication preferences, email was the most popular option.

The preferred location for accessing a women’s health hub was in their own GP practice, with the next most popular option being at a dedicated centre.

Recommendations

We made 15 recommendations based on what women and girls told us. These included recommendations for planning, designing and implementing women’s health hubs, as well as recommendations for women’s health care across the wider health and care system.

Key recommendations included:

• Taking women’s preferences into account for communication methods and location of women’s health hubs.
• Establishing appointment booking systems for women’s health hubs that enable women to book an appointment day and time that works for them.
• Ensuring patients are always informed of who they will be seeing in advance of the appointment, and giving patients the option of requesting to see a female clinician.

Next steps 

We will share this report and our findings with commissioners and providers of local health and care services, and will follow up on the recommendations made.