As many as 400,000 women are affected by menopause every year, an online discussion was told recently, with Menopause awareness, support, and the solutions available to people experiencing the condition as the subject .
Held to commemorate menopause awareness month, the discussion was chaired by Professor Mike Bewick, former Deputy National Medical Director, NHS England.
Professor Bewick was joined by four panellists including Diane Danzebrink, founder of Menopause Support and the #MakeMenopauseMatter campaign, Matthew Cripps, Lead of NHS England’s Menopause Pathway Improvement Programme, Suzanne Banks CBE, the Clinical Programme Lead of NHSE/I, Carolyn Harris MP, Chair of the Menopause APPG and Melinda Morgan, Associate Director, HR Government & Social Value, IQVIA, a leading global provider of advanced analytics, technology solutions and clinical research services to the life sciences industry.
Diane spoke about the scale of the unmet needs of women who need support, as three out of four women will experience symptoms. However, after contacting their GP, most women are wrongly diagnosed and often told they are too young to experience cognitive or psychological menopausal symptoms. Although there have been significant improvements over the years, Diane argued more awareness should be created among women about perimenopause and menopause before it occurs. She said:
“When cervical screening starts at 25, an ideal opportunity is to start having those conversations, hand out those leaflets at that point, and then consolidate both of those things with a national public health campaign around menopause.” She added.
Find out more and see the video of the online discussion on the website of the organisers, Chamber UK , or watch below.