Use your voice for change on World Menopause Day

Kate Jarman is Chief Corporate Services Officer at Milton Keynes University Hospital and co-founder of Flex NHS, a movement to promote and enable flexible working in the NHS.

As a woman in my 40s, perimenopause and menopause are very much on my mind and running amok in my body – the kind of hormonal turbulence familiar to any parent of teenagers, or, if we cast our collective memories back a few decades, to us too.

This World Menopause Day, as every day, my social media algorithms are tailored to whatever kind of mushroom coffee, powdered greens, and skin and hair care products clever marketing people think will catch my attention. Which they do, obviously – I am of a generation of women whose every stage of life has been an opportunity to sell me more stuff to give me the looks and lifestyle I apparently crave.

Shining a light on menopause

But what about my actual life, and the life of women and people who will go through perimenopause and menopause whilst at work in busy, demanding jobs? As an NHS employee – one of around 1.4 million, 78% of whom are women – World Menopause Day is a good time to reflect on how the workplace works for those experiencing perimenopause and menopause; what we can do to provide supportive working environments; and how we shine a light on a subject that all too often exists in the shadowy corners of shame and silence.

According to NHS England – who have some great resources for NHS staff and employers on menopause support – around a fifth of the NHS workforce are women aged between 45 and 55 who may be experiencing menopausal symptoms. The average age of women working in the NHS is 43. In bands 8a to 9 (the most senior Agenda for Change roles, which spans all professions in the NHS, except for doctors) and bands 1 to 4, people aged 45 to 54 make up most of the workforce. Band 5 to 7 see the majority of the workforce aged between 25 to 54, encompassing three generations with very different needs and expectations of work).[i]

Making work, work for women in the NHS

So how do we make work, work through perimenopause and menopause? And perhaps more fundamentally, how do we design work for the people who work in the NHS? According to the CIPD who surveyed 2,000 working women[ii] aged 40 to 60, 73% experienced symptoms relating to menopause transition. Respondents gave clear insights into practical measures that would help – flexible working and the ability to control temperatures being the two described as ‘most helpful’. Despite this only a quarter said their organisation offered this kind of support.

We don’t have the data for this across the NHS, but it is not unusual for me to hear from staff whose experience of flexible working is very different to the NHS’s ‘flexible by default’ vision. There’s a running joke about NHS radiators being on in the summer and off in the winter, but the physical working environment in the NHS – from uniform restrictions through to inadequate changing and showering facilities and the inability to control the temperature of shared office and care environments – is a real issue for very many staff, particularly those struggling to regulate symptoms of menopause that may include hot flushes and sweating.

Tackling culture change

Designing work around the needs of our workforce is more culturally challenging than we might care to admit in the NHS. There is a strong sense of ‘we’ve always done it this way’ in parts of the service, coupled with both an assumption that the way we’ve always done it still works well for patients and the kind of ‘I survived’ mentality that sees one generation of the workforce hand down the hardships they endured to the next. But there are no prizes for endurance to be won. We are often too easily dismissive of the struggles of a life stage we have moved through, or one we have yet to experience.

As ever, tackling culture is the single most important action we can take to improve people’s experience of working through perimenopause and menopause. And who can change culture? You! Your voice on this issue and the actions you take are the ones that will change how work feels and works for those who are struggling with menopause symptoms. Whether that’s opening up a conversation about it; forming or joining networks and support groups in your organisation; saying yes to a flexible working request; starting a team discussion about how flexible working can work well on your ward or department; or lobbying for uniform policy change, you have the power to bring policy to life and into your life and the lives of your colleagues.

Our voices are powerful. This World Menopause Day, use yours to make change happen.

[i] Source: NHS Employers Age in the NHS infographic
[ii] Source: Menopause in the workplace | CIPD