Menopause (Support and Services) Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDanny Kruger
Main Page: Danny Kruger (Conservative - East Wiltshire)Department Debates - View all Danny Kruger's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(3 years ago)
Commons ChamberI am sure that the Minister will enlighten us on that issue. That is the issue: whatever we do today, it has to be communicated to the wider population so that they understand our commitment to their health.
The biggest complaint I have received over the past few months is from women who need both oestrogen and progesterone. Women who have had a hysterectomy can take oestrogen on its own, but everyone else needs both. Despite the two hormones being combined into one product, women are charged individually for the hormones, meaning that each prescription costs them £18.70, and with 86% of women getting only three months’ supply each time, the costs begin to add up.
The hon. Lady is being very good about giving way—I am very grateful to her. On the question of cost, I was struck by what she said earlier about her own really difficult experience of being prescribed antidepressants because she was not properly diagnosed with the menopause. I chair the all-party parliamentary group on prescribed drug dependence. She might be aware that last week Dr James Davies of Oxford University published research showing that the NHS currently spends half a billion pounds a year on unnecessary prescriptions of habit-forming drugs. Will she join me in raising serious concerns about that, and does she agree that we must press the Government to review properly the prescriptions of dependence-forming drugs?