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Private menopause clinics are seeing ten times as many patients as they were 18 months ago as women desperately try to access HRT medication.
Experts said many women feel dismissed by NHS GPs who tell them they are ‘too young’ to be going through the menopause or wrongly diagnose them with depression.
Many research HRT online and choose to seek treatment at private clinics due to delays in getting prescriptions and waits of around a year for an appointment with an NHS specialist.
One private practice is seeing 4,000 patients a month – up from 300 in just a year and a half.
GPs are under growing pressure due to a national shortage of HRT, particularly Oestrogel, which is used by around 30,000 women in the UK to help manage debilitating symptoms of the menopause.
Private menopause clinics are seeing ten times as many patients as they were 18 months ago as women desperately try to access HRT medication.
The British Menopause Society has advised doctors to consider alternative medication, including Sandrena gel and Lenzetto spray.
The Daily Mail launched a HRT manifesto on Saturday calling for changes including making it mandatory for medical students to be taught about the menopause and for women to be given menopause information at NHS health checks.
Women must ask GPs for a new prescription when they cannot access medication.
Jane Pangbourne of the HRT Truth Collective said: ‘GPs are under pressure because they don’t understand menopause and HRT in the sense that they haven’t been trained.
‘I’m not blaming GPs at all. They’ve been left hung out to dry in a lot of cases because they’ve been given misinformation or no information about HRT, so there’s extra pressure on them to provide a solution to these poor women.
‘The NHS waiting lists, of course, are really long anyway for everything specialist. The menopause specialist waiting lists are sometimes over a year, so women are
