Menopause (Support and Services) Bill

Jackie Doyle-Price Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), who has given a tour de force presentation of her Bill. She brings her characteristic charm and leadership with which she approaches all her campaigns. I am sure that when she was drawn at No. 3 in the private Members’ Bill ballot, the Government gave a collective intake of breath and thought, “Oh, my goodness! What is she going to bring in?” She has used that position to bring forward a Bill on a very important subject, which, as she says, affects 51% of the nation’s population. I am hugely grateful to her, not least because I have been banging on about exactly these subjects myself for a while. She is quite right when she says that there has been barely any reference to this debate or these issues in Hansard. Dare I say it, but that is because for a long time there just were not enough women in this place.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way on that point, because this point was burning inside me while I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) making her fantastic speech. Does the hon. Lady agree that this debate is one of the benefits of a truly diverse Parliament? Any time anybody asks us why it matters that there are more women in Parliament, here we have it—this debate would not have happened without more women being in Parliament, with all of our diverse experiences, alongside our male allies. Does she agree?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I could not possibly disagree with that. The really sad thing is that it has taken a century of women having the vote to get to a critical mass where we can now finally discuss these things. I hope that we will make up for lost time. This Bill is a very important one.

One of the most important things that this Bill will achieve is that society will start taking these subjects seriously. There is so much about women’s health that has been taboo for a very long time. I have spoken a lot previously about problem periods, and about the fact that endometriosis continues to go undiagnosed, causing massive problems for women and girls who suffer with it. It says everything. Again, one in three women suffer fibroids. We all think that it is normal. We all think that this is what a woman’s lot is, and we are encouraged to suffer in silence, and it really should not be that way. It is interesting to make that observation in the wake of the Cumberlege report, “First Do No Harm”, which, obviously, looked at these issues from the perspective of vaginal mesh.

Over and over again, we see the same issues raised. Women are not heard. The quality of conversations that women have with their medical practitioners is just not good enough. Too often, women feel fobbed off. That struck me when I was a Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care. A number of female colleagues would share with me their experiences. I just thought, “For goodness’ sake, we are pushy, opinionated women who are elected to this House! If we are not being heard, then God help the rest of the female population.” It is really important that we shine light on what can be expected. As the hon. Member for Swansea East so eloquently explained, presenting to a GP with symptoms, which ended up with her being sent away with a prescription for anti-depressants for something that all women will go through just is not good enough. I cannot believe that we are still having this conversation. The more that society in general understands what comes with menopause, the more that we will be able to have those sensible conversations and the more that we will be able to manage our conditions well. We must acknowledge this throughout society. We have to start in schools and make sure that everyone understands the life course around women’s health and what they will go through.

[Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for bringing this Bill forward. On educating people, one of the first times that I actually understood this issue was as a result of this Bill, so it is key for women and men to learn about the subject at a young age so that we can go forward.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend puts that extremely well. The fact of the matter is that, even as women who are well-informed and interested in this subject, we still do not necessarily know what to expect. It is also the case that boys and men need to understand these things too.

Hon. Members will know that I chair the all-party pharmacy group and I can advise the House that the National Pharmacy Association is fully in support of this Bill. It fully supports the exemption of HRT from prescription charges. It also expressed its willingness to play a much bigger role in terms of the education and support of women going through menopause. We know that, a lot of the time, the conversations that patients can have with their pharmacists are less intimidating and less formal than those they might have with their GP. Again, lots of things are available over the counter that can help alleviate the symptoms of menopause, but also a lot of advice can be given about generally looking after wellbeing. I say to the Minister that I know that pharmaceutical bodies will be very keen to play their role in making sure that there is a much wider understanding and in giving more support to women going through the menopause.

My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) raised the important issue of the half a billion pounds of potential waste of prescriptions. We must make better use of pharmacists to review prescriptions, because they often tend to know more about the drugs that are being dispensed than thfe GPs who are writing the prescriptions. If we can play a better role in enabling pharmacists to review the prescriptions that their patients are presenting to them, we might go a long way to making those savings and getting more bang for our buck from the billions of pounds that we spend on our NHS. I encourage the Minister to look constructively at that suggestion, because the issue of misdiagnosis and the cost of drugs is significant.

The hon. Member for Swansea East has raised the issue of vaginal dryness. That leads me to make the observation that if we had applied as much attention to vaginal atrophy as we had to erectile dysfunction, we would be much better off—wouldn’t we? I cannot help but come to the conclusion that if this were happening to men, we might be in a better place. Look at what happened when Viagra was invented: within a year, it became available over the counter. That really begs the question of whether women are being treated fairly in this context. It does not feel like it to me. Again, I am sure that the Minister will be quite sympathetic to that point.

I ask the Government to look constructively at that issue, because we could liberate some of these drugs and make them more available over the counter. We have recently made the mini-pill available over the counter, which is really important given that one in three pregnancies is unplanned, and increasingly those unplanned pregnancies are women in their 30s, rather than teenagers. We have got to the right place when it comes to making contraception more available over the counter, but it took an awfully long time—much longer than making Viagra available over the counter. We must take these matters seriously.

On the subject of vaginal atrophy, I pay tribute to my constituent Sue Moxley. Sue used to be the beauty editor of The Sun. She is now better known for being the singing partner of her husband, David Van Day. She has spoken very publicly about her issues with vaginal atrophy. Again, she echoed the point that it happened to her completely unexpectedly. She was not prepared for it at all and it was incredibly difficult for her to find out information about what she was going through. In the end, having had a number of referrals, she experienced a direct laser-based treatment from Italy to improve the supply of collagen to the vagina, and it was transformational. I ask the Minister to look at that treatment. It is a direct physical treatment; it will not suit everybody, but neither does HRT. We have to ensure that we have a diverse range of treatments available, depending on people’s conditions, because, as the hon. Lady mentioned, everyone’s experience of menopause is very different.

One other issue that Sue raised with me was that it was suggested to her that women who have not experienced childbirth tend to suffer menopause worse. That raises another question, because if that is true, women should all know about it. There is lots about our life courses and experiences that will impact our health, but I would suggest that not enough research is being done into these things. For 51% of the population, I think we deserve better, so I encourage the Minister to look at that.

I have a few final points. The hon. Lady mentioned that HRT has had a bad press. A study in—I think—2001 suggested an increased risk of breast cancer as a consequence of HRT. In fact, that increase was very small, and the impact that study has had on women’s wellbeing has been far more damaging. Let us look at what goes on further through life. If more women were encouraged to take HRT, there would be massive savings for the Government. When we look at social care and why people go into residential care towards the end of their lives, we see that one of the biggest causes is falls and frailty. If we could encourage more women to take HRT—if it suits them—we would have fewer problems with osteoporosis and the injuries that lead to it. It makes perfect sense—we are spending to save.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

I join my hon. Friend in her congratulations to the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris). It was Teresa Gorman who said:

“HRT keeps you out of hospital, out of an old folks’ home and out of the divorce courts.”

Does she agree that it is surprising that one third of women who visited a GP were not made aware of HRT, and that greater awareness of it will help improve women’s health?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend puts the point so well: it is incredible that so long after the former hon. Member for Billericay was making her campaign, we have not moved on—we have almost stalled. However, the hon. Member for Swansea East is turbocharging it so that we can make up for lost time. From a Government perspective, it is frankly a false economy not to make HRT more widely available.

The hon. Lady made the crucial point that there is not enough training of medical professionals about these issues, either. That must be addressed as a matter of urgency. I fully support the Bill and congratulate the hon. Lady and all the campaigners she has worked with to get us to this place. It is clear from the mood in the Chamber that the House is with her, and amen to that! Women are back in charge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to speak in the debate, and to follow the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) and the other Members who have spoken so far. I think that by speaking out about the menopause, Members on both sides of the House, women and men, will be giving a voice to 13 million menopausal and perimenopausal women in the country whose needs have been downplayed or ignored for too long.

I must begin by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), a phenomenal campaigner who is working across party lines, and with organisations up and down the country, to push this agenda, make a practical difference to women’s lives, and get the job done. I am very proud to stand alongside her today.

I feel that at this point I should make a personal declaration of interest in this topic, as many of my colleagues have already done today. To be honest, I am not really sure when the symptoms first started, but they have been building steadily over the last year—the truly terrifying sense of anxiety and panic that I had never experienced before; feeling completely exhausted, sore and aching all over, wondering in the evenings if I could make it up the stairs to go to bed, let alone do the exercise that has always been such an important part of my life; the itching, the hair loss, and just feeling downright low; and above all, what I can only describe as the catastrophically bad sleep, night after night. I would finally emerge in the morning drenched with sweat, thinking, “How on earth am I going to make it through the day?”

Like so many other women, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I thought that there could be reasons for each of those symptoms individually, but together they felt overwhelming. 1t was only when a friend of mine recommended that I check out the MegsMenopause website that the penny finally dropped. This was something real, something really was happening, it had a name, and there was something that I could do about it that might start gradually getting the old me back.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I thank the hon. Lady for being so honest and open about this. She has just said that she did not know what was happening to her. Given that she is an intelligent, well-informed woman, does that not illustrate the importance of better education about this condition?

[Liz Kendall]

Absolutely. I must be honest: I was in a quandary about whether I was going to say anything today, but, like the hon. Lady, I thought, “If we in this place, with the power, influence and authority that we have, are too nervous to speak out, what does that say? “ We need to be leaders and champions, and I hope that we are all making a small contribution to that today.

I must say that I have had a very good experience with my GP. Two weeks ago, I did an online survey. A few days later, I had a phone consultation and I got my first HRT prescription last week—ironically, on the same day as the Backbench Business debate on World Menopause Awareness Month—but I know that millions of other women are nowhere near as lucky. Almost one in 10 women have to see their GP more than 10 times before they get proper help and advice. Two thirds of women suffering low mood or anxiety, like my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East, are wrongly given antidepressants instead of HRT, often for many years. Around one in three women will end up having a hip fracture due to osteoporosis unless they take HRT, as was rightly mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins).

The objectives at the heart of this Bill—to raise awareness of the menopause, to make it easier for women to access HRT and to improve the education and training of health professionals—are absolutely essential. I hope when the Minister rises to speak, she will set out the steps her Government will take to make these goals a reality, because frankly, getting women the right diagnosis and the right treatment at the right time is a no-brainer. It is better for women and it is better for the taxpayer, because it will stop women having to have lots of unnecessary doctor’s appointments. It will stop them being put on the wrong medicines for years, leaving the real issue untreated and undiagnosed, and it will reduce the likelihood of women getting conditions such as osteoporosis when they do not need to, which can lead to much more serious and expensive NHS care, such as hip and other operations.

There is lots more I could say on that issue, but I want to use the remaining time I have to talk about the impact of menopause in the workplace, an issue rightly raised and championed by the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North. There are currently more than 4.3 million working women aged 50 to 64. We are the fastest growing group in the UK workforce, often at the peak of our experience, with all the skills and talent that that brings, but 80% of women say that the menopause has affected their working lives.

Around 14 million days are lost at work every year due to menopause, and a quarter of menopausal women at work find the symptoms so debilitating that they are considering reducing their hours, changing their working patterns or leaving the workplace altogether. Women lose their income and careers, businesses lose their talent and the Treasury loses their taxes. Where on earth is the sense in that?

The fundamental problem is that the vast majority of women are too embarrassed, worried or frightened to speak out or discuss the issue with their bosses or line managers. I think the reason for that is the double whammy of sexism and ageism. If a quarter of men in their 50s were considering quitting work or reducing their hours, you can bet your bottom dollar that it would be at the top of the workplace agenda and a solution would pretty quickly be found. Women should not have to suffer in silence. We have to remove the ignorance and stigma about the menopause. It is not a women’s issue or a private matter, let alone a joking matter; it is a mainstream, no excuses, no ifs or buts workplace issue, and it must be addressed. Again, I hope when the Minister rises, she will set out the steps her Government intend to take on this vital issue.

In conclusion, Members will know that I have never been one for revolutions, but on this issue I make an exception.