Almost half of menopausal women say they were forced to ‘seek private care’

Almost half of women going through the menopause say they were left with no option but to seek private healthcare, troubling new research has suggested.

Healthcare providers told The Independent menopausal women are resorting to private treatment due to failing to get proper support or correct prescriptions from NHS doctors.

Campaigners warned some women are racking up debt by borrowing money from the bank or relatives as private treatment can spiral into costing thousands of pounds.

The majority of the 3.4 million women between 50 and 64 in the UK will be experiencing symptoms of menopause – with these ranging from heart palpitations to hot flushes, vaginal pain, anxiety and depression.

Data from the Menopause Support network, shared exclusively with The Independent, found 48 per cent of just over 600 women they polled said they had been “left with no option but to seek private menopause care”.

Diane Danzebrink, who set up the community support group, which helps almost 20,000 women a month, said: “A lot of GPs don’t have adequate menopause education.

“The GP is the gatekeeper of health. You have to get past the GP to any specialist service. So if your GP doesn’t recognise your physical, psychological or cognitive symptoms as menopausal then they won’t refer you.

“The option is go home and suffer in silence, which a lot of women do. But more and more women are becoming aware that there is specialist private menopause healthcare out there.”

She called it a “national disgrace” women are being forced to privately fund treatment available on the NHS due to medical professionals’ “lack of knowledge”. She added that not getting proper support is exerting an “incredibly detrimental effect on women’s quality of life”.

Ms Danzebrink, who is a psychotherapist and menopause expert, said she occasionally hears of doctors refusing to give women Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) – often telling the woman they are too young for it due to still being in their 40s, or that they cannot have it as they are still having periods.

But she warned this advice is wrong and infringes National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance – evidence-based recommendations for NHS healthcare in England.

“If you can’t get access to HRT via the NHS route and you know that is what you need and want, you don’t have any choice but to go private,” she added.

Ms Danzebrink, who is calling for all GPs to have compulsory menopause training, noted the initial appointment can cost up to £300 but this generally necessitates a follow-up and sometimes an additional private prescription fee.

GPs then sometimes refuse to take over the woman’s care and prescribe what their menopause specialist has advised, meaning they are forced to keep paying for private prescriptions and follow-up care, she added.

Ms Danzebrink estimates this has happened to hundreds of women across the UK, if not more.

“If GPs were educated in menopause the way they should be, then they wouldn’t have women returning six, seven or eight times,” she added. “That would save GPs time, NHS resources, and a huge amount of stress for the patient.”

She said she knew one woman who had several relatives chip in £10 and £20 so she had enough for her initial private menopause appointment, while another woman had been forced to cancel a post-lockdown holiday away with her daughter due to having to spend the money on a private menopause appointment.

“I know lots of people who put these appointments on credit cards because they don’t have the funds,” Ms Danzebrink said. “So they are going to be paying off credit card debt over time.”

Freedom of Information requests carried out by Ms Danzebrink found around four in 10 medical schools in the UK do not have mandatory menopause education on the curriculum.

Rachel Chumley, a 49-year-old, said she had to resort to taking out a credit card to fund her private specialist menopause healthcare.

She added: “I started getting what I now know as perimenopause symptoms two years ago. This started with dizziness and anxiety. I went to the doctors and was told it’s just vertigo.

“This lasted for months. I paid private to see an ear nose and throat specialist and was told it was probably an inner ear infection. More symptoms followed again. I had depression, joint pain, migraines.”

Ms Chumley said a friend who was going through perimenopause – the time just before the menopause starts – suggested she also could be experiencing it so she consulted her GP on three separate occasions.

“I asked if it could be the menopause,” she added. “One female GP said, ‘No, it can’t possibly be – you are still having periods.’ Another female GP told me it’s something us women just need to go through and HRT is not helpful and causes cancer. My symptoms got so bad, including having time off work.”

Dr Heather Currie, the spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) who runs a specialist menopause clinic, told The Independent it made her “sad that this is the situation women are finding themselves in.”

The trustee and former chair of the British Menopause Society added: “Women shouldn’t have to seek advice privately. There is a lot of work which is going on in NHS and there are a lot of primary care teams that do a good job. But we need to make sure there are adequate appropriate services in the NHS.”

Her comments come after Carolyn Harris, the Labour MP for Swansea East, introduced legislation to parliament this week seeking to overhaul “menopause rights, entitlements and education”.

A spokesperson for the government has been contacted for comment.