World Menopause Month

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), who made some excellent points, and it is great to take part in this debate on World Menopause Month. I am pleased to be a member of the all-party parliamentary group on menopause, chaired with typical passion and panache by my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris).

I add my support to the call for the menopause revolution across policy making to finally address the personal, social and professional impact of the menopause on the lives of women in the UK. The issues faced by so many women were outlined so ably by my hon. Friend that I will not repeat them, but we will have another opportunity to discuss some of these issues next Friday when we consider her private Member’s Bill. The menopause is an issue that has been woefully overlooked, and I particularly welcome her reference to menopause training, which is important.

As other Members want to speak, I will make a short contribution to add my support for the awareness raising and the calls for change. We need to see an urgent change of attitude in our workplaces to reflect the changing make-up of the workforce. Menopausal women are the fastest growing working demographic in the UK. In Wales, nearly half of all working women are over 50 and are likely to be experiencing the perimenopause or the menopause.

However, a cut-off age of 50 does not reflect the number of women affected, many of whom will be experiencing symptoms of the perimenopause in their mid-to-late 40s, while many younger women experience an early menopause, whether premature, surgical or medical. This includes younger women experiencing common conditions such as endometriosis, who may receive treatment that induces menopausal symptoms. I am sure we all pay tribute to the all-party parliamentary group on endometriosis and its former chair, David Amess, who we are thinking about very much this week.

What is clear is that support for women suffering from the potentially debilitating symptoms of the menopause is not widespread in many workplaces. Although the Equality Act 2010 prohibits discrimination on the grounds of sex, research from the Wales TUC, which has done great work on this for many years and I commend it to the Minister, highlights how many women feel that managers simply do not recognise problems associated with the menopause in the way that they would for other health conditions, even those with similar symptoms arising from different causes. In studies conducted ahead of the publication of its superb menopause toolkit, the Wales TUC found that almost a third of women with direct experience of the menopause felt that it was treated negatively in their workplace and nearly 60% reported witnessing the menopause being treated as a joke. That clearly highlights the pressing need for menopause workplace policies, particularly in large organisations, so that women know they have the support, the flexibility and the time off without the worry of losing out on pay.

I also want to mention the link between the menopause and osteoporosis, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) did. She is our lead on this, as chair of the all-party group on osteoporosis and bone health. That affects 3.5 million people across the UK. Half of women over 50 will suffer a broken bone due to osteoporosis, which, as she said, is a condition closely tied with changes in oestrogen levels. As she said, the menopause is an important time for bone health and bone density. Like the menopause itself, osteoporosis is not something policy makers can merely dismiss as a mild feature of getting older, as many people die from fracture-related causes. Although people living with the disease can live a healthy life with prompt diagnosis and the right support, millions are suffering the consequences of long-term pain and even disability because of under-diagnosis and under-treatment.

The day-to-day impact of osteoporosis cannot be underestimated. Research from the Royal Osteoporosis Society shows that a quarter of osteoporosis sufferers will be living with long-term pain; that 71% have trouble with cleaning and cooking; and that 52% say the condition affects their ability to get around, to drive or to use public transport. There is much more on that. Work is going on in many areas, including in the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board in my area, where we have the specialist first fracture clinic in Pontypool, and a fracture liaison service based at Nevill Hall Hospital. However, that needs to be more widespread. I implore Ministers to work with the ROS on its request for the Government to match-fund their research investment, as part of a much-needed rebalancing of research investment towards musculoskeletal conditions, which account for 9% of the health burden, but a mere 3% of the research spend.

Finally, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East for her Menopause (Support and Services) Bill to end English prescription charges for hormone replacement therapy, which can help to prevent osteoporosis and other menopause symptoms. As has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), thanks to the Welsh Labour Government, our constituents in Wales do not have to pay to access that essential treatment. The Bill aims to ensure that that is also true for our neighbours across the River Severn.