World Menopause Month

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I should like to start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate today. I also want to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) and of course my friend the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) not only for this debate but for their brilliant work on the menopause. The fact that we have a menopause awareness month, and a day, demonstrates how far we have come in this debate. Clearly there needs to be a continuous, bigger conversation on women’s health issues and about how our bodies change as we get older, and it is important to reinforce the fact that the Government have a clear policy on addressing women’s health. I look forward to the strategy being published—sooner rather than later, I hope.

As a perimenopausal woman myself—I say that with pride—I think it is right that we discuss these issues now, in public and with our friends and families. We have heard loud and clear today that access to information about the menopause remains critical to enabling women to feel empowered to make informed decisions about their own health. Right now, we need women themselves to be well informed, to have positive reinforcement and to be supported by sympathetic networks. That is why I am delighted to have met Elizabeth and Clare, the founders of Pausitivity, a not-for-profit campaign dedicated to helping women feel empowered to talk about the menopause and to provide tools to make informed decisions. I have a copy here of its “Know Your Menopause” poster. I have a copy in Welsh—Cymraeg—and one in English. It is also available in Urdu, Scottish Gaelic, German, French and Dutch on the campaign’s website. The posters follow the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines. I would recommend all clinical commissioning groups across the country to talk to their GPs about putting these posters up in their surgeries, to provide women with the information and signposting that they need.

I was first struck by the menopause—it was like being struck by a truck, to be honest—when I was 48. That was when I started to feel the many different symptoms. I had a blood test, but it showed that my hormones were fine. Apparently I was not having any issues with the menopause. I remember my GP phoning me about something and she said, “How are you?” I said, “Well, apart from the acne, the hair loss, the weight gain, the stress, the insomnia and the anxiety, I am absolutely fine!” To which she said, “Okay: HRT.” I went on to HRT straightaway and have never looked back. It has been a lifeline. I also have to declare an interest as I pay for the prescription charge myself.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

I would like to commend the hon. Lady for her speech and to commend my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for the excellent work that she has been doing. I also commend everybody in the Chamber this afternoon. I had a very similar experience to that of the hon. Lady at the age of 48 or 49. On the point about prescriptions, we are fortunate in Wales and I did not have to pay for my HRT prescriptions. I would like to give a shout-out to the Welsh Labour Government for looking after women in that way.

[Nickie Aiken]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention.

I had a discussion with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care this week about the costs of HRT and the stresses and strains on the NHS budget following covid, which I understand. With this in mind, will the Minister reiterate to the House the current NICE guidelines and ask NICE to reach out to GPs and encourage them to tell their patients about all the options available to them, as well as any associated costs? I understand that there is a system in place where women can get an annual prescription for their HRT, but there is a lot of confusion about that, so I would appreciate it if the Minister could address that in her summing up.

As has already been said, and I completely agree, the menopause is not just a women’s issue. This is a people’s issue, and men have to be part of the discussion, too. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes) and for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) for sitting down with me last week to ask about the menopause—my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes asked, “Will you please talk me through the menopause?” because he knows how important it is—and I gave them a complete and utter description. They were quite horrified, to be honest.

It goes back to what my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) said: men have to understand what their mothers, sisters, partners and work colleagues are going through if we are ever to break down the barriers and make the menopause less of a taboo. I reiterated that to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care this week, and he agreed with me that men have a huge part to play in breaking down the barriers.

It is important that we consider the workplace. I take my hat off to the likes of Timpson and PwC for their brilliant work. Women, and particularly menopausal women, make up so much of the workforce. I am a woman in the prime of my life and hopefully just beginning my political career in this place. I believe I have so much to offer, and knowing that I have the HRT and the support will help me. We need to ensure that companies focus on developing strategies to help their women, and to help their colleagues to help women through this.

I am proud to support the Government’s ambitious project to set women’s health as a huge priority. We are making women’s voices heard and putting them at the centre of their own care, to make sure that our national health system truly works for the whole nation. I believe the Minister is listening and I look forward to her response.