Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:58 pm on 9 June 2021.
Diolch yn fawr. I'd like to pay tribute as well to Suzy Davies for the great work that she did to put this onto the agenda. I was really pleased that one of the last things that the education Minister did was to make that commitment that, in the curriculum, women's health issues are going to be a part of what everybody learns about in school, because you're absolutely right: this is not just an issue for women; men have to understand it as well. And I'm really pleased that a lot of unions in Wales have also championed this cause and made sure there's heightened awareness of this issue throughout Wales.
I was listening to Woman's Hour today on the way in, and it was very interesting, talking about the whole issue of women's health and the need to really focus on it and to make sure that we take this seriously. Certainly, in the Welsh Government, we do take it seriously. We have a women's health reference group that really looks at these things in detail, just to make sure it's getting the attention that these issues deserve, and I look forward to hearing more about that as I continue in this role. But, certainly, we're obviously concerned about accessibility at the moment. The pandemic has pushed everything back. But I think you're absolutely right: there are some nurse experts who can actually help a great deal in these spaces, and I think we have to try and condition people to get people to understand that, actually, an expert can be somebody who's been doing the job and has absolute specialist information about it, who is not necessarily a consultant or a GP, and they can be very, very useful at times.