The Times - UK (2022-04-28)

14 Thursday April 28 2022 | the times

News

Women are having to take days off
work amid worsening shortages of
hormone replacement therapy.
Some who have run out of medica-
tion have taken time off to drive round
pharmacies in a desperate quest to find
one with stocks of HRT.
About five million women aged 50 to
64 are employed in the UK, and cam-
paigners say shortages of the drugs risk
forcing them out of the workplace.
Some are resorting to the black market,
buying HRT via social media or even
travelling abroad to countries such as
Spain to get hold of the drugs.
Research shows that debilitating
menopause symptoms such as hot
flushes and insomnia, exacerbated by
difficulties getting HRT, are forcing
women to retire early.
The popular brands Oestrogel and
Sandrena, prescribed to more than
30,000 women in the UK, are now al-
most impossible to obtain.
Earlier this month, Julie Macken, a
52-year-old businesswoman, had to go
without HRT for a few days, causing the

Davina McCall, the former Big Brother
host and presenter of Long Lost Family
and television quizzes, has said that
campaigning over the menopause has
given her a new sense of purpose in life.
McCall, 54, described how she had
become perimenopausal at work but
“didn’t want to talk to anyone about it”,
despite “making mistakes” that she had
never done before. Perimenopause is a
period of transition before menopause.

SHUTTERSTOCK

Call to revamp

health service

compensation

Kat Lay Health Editor

A compensation system for NHS
patients costs billions a year and requires
radical overhaul, a new report says.
MPs on the health and social care
select committee said patients and
their families should not have to prove
poor care amounted to clinical negli-
gence in order to get compensation.
This results in a “slow, adversarial,
stressful, and often bitter” experience
for families as they go through the
courts, and a system that encourages
individual blame rather than collective
learning from mistakes, they added.
Meanwhile, NHS costs are driven up
by legal fees necessary for people to
navigate the system, the MPs said.
Last year the NHS in England paid
£2.17 billion in compensation for harm
done to patients during treatment, a
figure equivalent to the annual running
costs of four average-sized hospitals.
The bill is expected to double over the
next ten years to £4.6 billion.
Jeremy Hunt, former health secre-
tary and chairman of the health and
social care committee, said: “The
system of compensating patients for
negligence in the NHS is long overdue
for reform.”
Fixed fee row for clinical negligence,
law, page 54

A

n anti-burp

mask for

cows is one

of the

winners of

a design competition

supported by the

Prince of Wales to find

ideas to tackle climate

change (Ben Webster

writes).

The team say it

could cut a cow’s

methane emissions by

60 per cent,

significantly reducing

the global warming

impact of meat and

dairy products. Prince

Charles’s Sustainable

Markets Initiative has

teamed up with Sir

Jony Ive, the former

chief design officer of

Apple, to run the

Terra Carta Design

Lab competition for

students past and

present of the Royal

College of Art (RCA),

where Ives is now

chancellor.

The four winners

will each receive

£50,000 to develop

their ideas, plus

receive mentoring

from Ives.

The three other

winners are a device

that captures toxic

particles shed by tyres;

a fully recyclable and

chemical-free

breathable textile, and

aerodynamic pods that

contain seeds and

nutrients and can be

spread widely by the

wind to accelerate the

recovery of forests.

The cow mask has

attracted interest from

some of the largest

beef and dairy

processors in the UK

and Europe, according

to its designers. It does

not affect cows’ stress

level.

Speaking at the

event at the RCA in

south London, Charles

said of climate change

that “crises are

confronting us in all

directions”, which

highlighted the

importance of “finding

solutions rapidly”.

Mask for

Cow-vid?

No, it’s to

stop burps

The mask, which is said

to cut a cow’s methane

emissions by 60 per

cent, has no impact on

the animal’s stress level,

according to the team

Women taking days off work to

search for elusive HRT supplies

Eleanor Hayward
Health Correspondent

return of symptoms including hot

flushes. Eventually, she resorted to

taking a morning off work and had to

visit seven pharmacies in Oxfordshire

before she finally found one that had

HRT in stock.

Elizabeth Carr-Ellis, founder of the

Pausitivity campaign, said: “For the

past three years on and off women have

struggled to get hold of HRT. At the

moment the main problem is Oestro-

gel. But that is having knock-on effects

on other brands. Women are having to

spend hours trekking back and forth

between their GPs and pharmacists to

get hold of it.”

MPs say the difficulties women are

experiencing in getting the drug is evi-

dence of systemic sexism and a “disre-

gard of women’s health”.

Last year a Department of Health re-

port, published as part of the govern-

ment’s women’s health strategy, told of

many women who were refused hor-

mone treatment during the meno-

pause. One woman said she was put on

antidepressants instead and was left

unable to concentrate. “My brain was

like cotton wool — I could not even

read or watch TV,” she said.

Others said that GPs were inclined to

dismiss symptoms such as hot flushes.

Some women said they were forced to

go private. The HRT crisis has been

made worse by a postcode lottery in

prescribing which means that Bijuve, a

product made by Theramex, is not

being made available on the NHS for

many. Only women in Somerset and

Norfolk are currently able to obtain the

product, which is the best alternative to

Oestrogel, owing to delays in approving

prescriptions for it at a local NHS clini-

cal commissioning group level.

Carolyn Harris, the Labour MP for

Swansea, said the government needed

to tell NHS clinical commissioning

groups that other forms of HRT were

available. “This stuff is physically avail-

able, piled high in warehouses, but it is

not being given to women who are cry-

ing out for HRT.”

Manufacturing delays linked to the

pandemic have led to global supply

problems for other brands of HRT as

well as other drugs. The Pharmaceuti-

cal Services Negotiating Committee

has warned that medications for

cancer, heart disease and fertility treat-

ment are among those affected.

Let’s talk about the menopause, says Davina McCall

In an interview with Good House-

keeping magazine, she described how

she had first started to speak up.

“I sort of fell into it by accident

because I wanted to learn more about

the menopause for myself and, as I did,

I thought, ‘How is it that all women

don’t know these things, when 51 per

cent of the population is female?’

“What’s lovely is that being able to

use my platform to spread the word has

given me purpose at this stage in my

life.” Describing her experience of the

perimenopause in the workplace, she

said: “I was doing a live TV show called

Stepping Out and I was forgetting the

names of contestants and making

mistakes on the autocue, which I’d

never done before.

“One day, the producer came into my

dressing room and said, ‘Are you OK?

You don’t seem yourself,’ and I said, ‘Oh,

I’m fine.’ Then, when she left, I just

cried. I thought: ‘What’s happening to

me?’”

McCall presented a documentary,

Sex, Myths and the Menopause, which

aired on Channel 4 last year. It is

thought to have contributed to a surge

in demand for hormone replacement

therapy (HRT) products, of which

there is now a shortage.

McCall is the presenter of a follow-up

programme called Sex, Mind and the

Menopause, which will be broadcast in

May.

The full interview with Davina

McCall is in the June 2022 issue of Good

Housekeeping and is on sale today.

Charlotte Wace

Green space

cuts female

dementia risk

Middle-aged women who like to be sur-

rounded by plants and flowers are less

likely to suffer depression or dementia,

according to a study.

Researchers found that living in

areas with more greenery also im-

proves brain processing speed and at-

tention, as well as overall cognitive

function — a strong predictor of whe-

ther a person develops dementia.

They said that increasing green space

in residential areas could help improve

cognitive function in middle-aged

women and that the association might

be explained by a reduction in depres-

sion, which is also a risk factor for de-

mentia.

The findings, published in the journal

JAMA Network Open, bolster previous

research that has linked exposure to

parks, community gardens and other

greenery with improved mental health.

Dr Marcia Pescador Jimenez, an as-

sistant professor of epidemiology at

Boston University School of Public

Health who was the lead author of the

study, said: “Some of the primary ways

that nature may improve health is by

helping people recover from psycho-

logical stress and by encouraging

people to be outside socialising with

friends, both of which boost mental

health.

“This study is among the few to pro-

vide evidence that green space may

benefit cognitive function in older ages.

Our findings suggest that green space

should be investigated as a potential

population-level approach to improve

cognitive function.”

For the study, the American research

team measured psychomotor speed, at-

tention, learning and working memory

among more than 13,500 women with

an average age of 61. They found that

green space exposure was associated

with psychomotor speed and attention,

but not learning or working memory.

Case study

J

ulie Macken had to take a

morning off work and visit

seven pharmacies to find

HRT. The businesswoman,

52, who runs the skincare

brand Neve’s Bees, was without

the medication for a few days,

which caused symptoms such as

hot flushes to return.

She said: “I drove to Witney, in

Oxfordshire, and went to four big

pharmacies but none had it. The

pharmacist in Boots advised me

to drive around some of the

smaller villages as they might

have stock.” Finally, one did.

Her GP has had to switch her

dose because of the shortage, and

Macken is worried about getting

more when her supply runs out

in two weeks. “I went on HRT a

year ago and it felt like being

given a lifeline. If I can’t find

HRT I will not be functioning at

full capacity, which is definitely

going to damage our business.”