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[Ayesha]

Great news for the women of the future, hopefully no more horror stories from the way women have been treated by some doctors, almost barbaric reading the stories of the past. 

[Gilla999]

I can't read the article without subscribing but any and all conversation/discussion about female health is gladly welcomed. Last night I saw for the first time a Menopause / female health consultant via the NHS, referred by my GP (waiting list was one year!). I didn't even know such a thing existed! She was mostly great and I smiled to myself when she referenced Louise Newsom a couple of times. I realise like any Newsom Health's clinic isn't perfect but it made me think about how grateful I am to her for all the work she's done for women on the subject, that has had such far reaching positive outcomes that she wouldn't even be aware of. Hopefully this is the start of more positive experiences for our children than we had!

I do wish our doctors and nurses got paid more too!

[Katherine]

I saw that, it sounds great but I can't believe it was never on the curriculum before!

[ATB]

Yes it should have definitely been on the curriculum before now! It’s crazy women have to start campaigns or work just to actually have the medical profession see us and hear us! But this is a global problem and I’m really so pleased it’s now a priority and our complaints have been heard.
Yes Gilla, although there are issues around the huge sums of money Newson are making, we can’t deny Louise has done an awful lot of work around awareness and my new GP had also heard of her and it was very easy once she saw my notes from Newson to get her to prescribe it. So glad to read you’ve seen a menopause specialist on the NHS!

[Taz2]

I'm not sure who I was listening to on Radio 4 this morning but she was discussing this topic and said that so often if you have a vagina you haven't had a voice. I thought this is very true.

Taz x

[ATB]

Absolutely agree with that! I complained the other day to the NHS for removing the word ‘woman’ from the menopause page! Honestly, you don’t see us or listen to us and now you just wipe out our name? Not having it.

[Nicodemus]

Oh don't get me started on the erasure of the word "woman"...

(glad you liked the Criado Perez book ATB)

[ATB]

There are more details of it on this gov page:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/first-womens-health-strategy-for-england-to-tackle-gender-health-gap

Some specifics:
- the £10 million figure is for breast cancer screening

- Feedback from thousands of women across the country revealed that they feel their voices were not always listened to, and there was a lack of understanding or awareness among some medical professionals about health conditions which affect women.

To address this, the strategy commits to:

-commissioning urgent research by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) into healthcare professionals’ experiences of listening to women in primary care, with a focus on menstrual and gynaecological symptoms to inform policy to ensure women’s voices are heard
-introducing specific teaching and assessments on women’s health in undergraduate curricula for all graduating medical students from 2024 to 2025 and for all incoming doctors
-major investment via the NIHR into research on women’s health issues, including a new policy research unit on reproductive health, and plans to:
address data gaps
-identify barriers to women participating in research
-improve the quality of data collected by the NHS – this will include running a new reproductive health experience survey every 2 years to continue to listen to women and gather insight on their experiences of services, including for contraception and menopause

There’s quite a lot there so do have a good read of it! The research part is what I’m really pleased about too, especially for endometriosis.

[ATB]

Oh don't get me started on the erasure of the word "woman"...

(glad you liked the Criado Perez book ATB)

Oh me too! Notice the word men is still all over everything on the nhs! Like we had to be told it’s a misogynistic institution! Yeah, we know!

[Gilla999]

Totally agree on the curriculum - it's a whole topic on its own, but I can't believe some of the stuff we still get taught in schools that I personally don't believe is very relevant to modern society and yet massively important stuff like financial management and menopause / menstrual health in general gets completely missed out!

I wonder how many of us here feel they could successfully pass exams in the menopause now as a result of all the self-education we've done 

[getting_old]

Great news that the issues have been highlighted and recognised, but it's the plans coming to fruition that will make the difference. Until then it's just another study that looks good on paper, with lots of references to research and studies but no details on how they will actually make it happen, especially in light of the global nursing staffing issues.

[Marchlove]

I think we should all be celebrating tonight!

A big step forward, so thank you ATB and other members who took part in the consultation process.

This is just the start I feel and it’s so encouraging to think that younger generations will benefit from our commitment to questioning the status quo.
X

[ATB]

Yeah agree Marchlove

I have reason to believe these aren’t going to be broken promises. They’ve already appointed an HRT Tsar, they’ve also reduced the cost of HRT ( although not till next year which I think should be brought forward ), abolished the tampon tax, spent £127mil on neo natal care plus millions more on new midwife’s & more obstetricians. I do think they intend to do what’s promised here because it’s part of a bigger plan to address the women’s health gap. It isn’t even just a matter of listening to us, although I think they have, but economically the proposals here will cost less and some like the menopause stuff will address women unable to work because of meno. This in turn is better for the economy. It’s the stuff womens health campaigners have addressed quite a bit if you are involved or kept up with some of these campaigns.

[CLKD]

'spend' on neonatal care - did the monies get to their promised destination? 

[ATB]

Why don’t you go look it up and start a thread on it?