Menopausal Symptoms: Support

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Rosie Duffield

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship for the first time, Ms Ghani. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), the deputy leader of the Welsh Labour party, for securing the debate today and for all that she is doing to raise awareness of this and many other women’s health issues.

Menopause will affect the vast majority of women, with some experiencing menopause earlier as a result of cancer or other health conditions. I have friends who have gone through it who then have the added stress of having to explain to others why they are unable to have children, or to share their medical histories. There seems to be such a lack of awareness and understanding of issues around the menopause. It can still feel like a bit of a taboo subject.

The menopause is, of course, a women’s health issue, so quite why the House of Commons titled today’s debate

“support for people experiencing menopausal symptoms”

is a bit of a mystery, particularly when the House of Commons Library report uses the word “women” throughout. Like all mostly women’s health issues, there is often difficulty with our being able to access the right help or support, or even the most basic information. Like many women in Parliament, I am in the age group most likely to be experiencing menopause and, like most women I know of my age, we rely on personal and professional friendship groups for sharing information and our own experiences. We talk to each other and usually find that every one of us will have had some similar, but also some very different, symptoms. It is often hearsay, rumour, second-hand or third-hand stories, shared articles or scraps of advice that are our main source of information about this major life change and huge change to our bodies.

My constituent, Elizabeth Ellis, started her campaign group 50Sense and the campaign “Know Your Menopause” to inform women after she could not get any help and support when she was first going through the menopause herself. How many times do politicians meet people like Elizabeth, who have used their own life experiences to become an expert and a champion in order to help others?

50Sense’s Pausitivity campaign produces a variety of really useful information, as well as posters that people can print out and put up in their workplaces and ask GPs to display. I encourage anyone who wants to know more to find the pausivity.co.uk website and download the great resources, including questions to ask GPs. Of course, that includes men. As husbands, partners, friends, colleagues and responsible employers, they ought to find out as much as they can, too, about this big event in the life of almost every woman they know. I hope hon. Members will note that I left sons out of that list, as, if I am being honest, I know that mine really do not want me to discuss my menopause with them, as lovely as that might sound.

Elizabeth, my constituent, and so many other women like her, should not have had to go back and forth to the GP for almost four years, with symptoms that she now knows were quite obviously the menopause. She was sent to A&E with heart palpitations and was even asked more than once if she was a cocaine user. If she had seen one of the Pausitivity posters she has now produced, it would surely have saved her a huge amount of distress, not to mention the NHS a lot of money. Another constituent, Michelle, had a surgical menopause and, because of the horrendous symptoms and lack of NHS treatment, was forced to go to a private consultant and spend a lot of money because the support she needed was not there. These women are not alone. Menopause cafés such as those mentioned by the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), in the last menopause debate are popular places for women to support each other and share stories. It is extremely common for many women to become almost suicidal with the lack of understanding or help available.

We need to end the postcode lottery or luck element of menopause support. All GP surgeries should have someone available to advise or support women, or should display a poster, so that they know what they are going through is perfectly normal. GPs and healthcare professionals can inform women about local support groups and menopause cafés. We need easy access to fully funded HRT treatment. Men too should also familiarise themselves with some of the facts. After all, most people in the UK are female and at some point will go through the menopause. I urge everyone to log onto pausitivity.co.uk or watch the excellent documentary produced by Davina McCall for Channel 4 recently.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

To ensure that all the speakers get in, we must impose a time limit of four and a half minutes.