Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans the Government has to introduce mandatory, up-to-date menopause training for all general practitioners; and whether there will be measures to ensure consistency in diagnosis and treatment across NHS services.

We know that more needs to be done to support women experiencing the menopause. The Government is committed to prioritising women’s health as we reform the National Health Service.

General practitioners are responsible for ensuring their own clinical knowledge, including on menopause, remains up-to-date and for identifying learning needs as part of their continuing professional development. This activity should include taking account of new research and developments in guidance, such as that produced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), to ensure that they can continue to provide high quality care to all patients.

All United Kingdom registered doctors are expected to meet the professional standards set out in the General Medical Council’s (GMC’s) Good Medical Practice. The training curriculum for postgraduate trainee doctors is set by the Royal College of General Practitioners, and has to meet the standards set by the GMC.

NICE published their updated guideline in November 2024 and recommended more treatment choices for menopause symptoms. The updated guideline aims to support healthcare professionals by providing them with the information they need to support evidence-based decisions about treatment choices, as well as information and support about menopause. The guideline recommends hormone replacement therapy (HRT) as the most effective treatment for vasomotor symptoms, and also recommends that for people over 40 years old healthcare professionals should consider menopause-specific cognitive behavioural therapy as an option for vasomotor symptoms associated with menopause in addition to HRT. HRT is the main treatment for menopause symptoms, and NICE recommends that for most women it is safe and effective.

The new women’s health data dashboard released last week reports on HRT use in different areas of the country and provides one measure of how consistently services are being provided.

NHS England will shortly publish an equity framework which will help systems identify and tackle inequalities in access to menopause care and regularly report on differences in HRT use for women of different ethnicities and of different socio-economic status.