NHSPS shortlisted for 'Best Women’s Health Initiative’

Colleague wellbeing is at the heart of our ‘Get, Grow and Keep’ People strategy, especially as we continue to recover from COVID-19. With 3,600 women working at NHSPS, raising awareness about menopause among our colleagues is very important to create a supportive culture.

About the campaign

In March 2022, we signed the Menopause Workplace Pledge and launched our ‘Let’s Talk Menopause’ campaign.

The campaign features a range of initiatives. We delivered a series of expert-led webinars covering nutrition to HRT, launched a Menopause Handbook containing information on signs, symptoms and support and trained 12 Menopause Champions.

To open up the conversation and tackle the taboo, we hosted a ‘Let’s Talk Menopause’ panel. This was a proud moment for us as we saw colleagues ranging from our COO to Office Team Leaders sharing their personal stories, including male colleagues discussing allyship and how they support loved ones and team members. To build on the success of the panel, we launched our online Menopause Community for colleagues to chat freely.

Our Menopause Policy underpins the campaign, empowering managers to implement reasonable adjustments and support their teams so we can keep and grow our great people.

Throughout our campaign we have been committed to remaining inclusive of anyone experiencing the menopause.

Impact of the campaign

We have witnessed a huge cultural shift; senior leaders are talking openly about their symptoms and encouraging colleagues to seek help if they are struggling, which they have been as we’ve seen an increase in managers proactively implementing reasonable adjustments.

A supportive community of women has blossomed from the campaign and colleagues have expressed that they don’t feel so alone after hearing others’ experiences.

We are proud that the campaign has built an open, supportive culture which has helped increase retention.

Georgia Shaw, Wellbeing Coordinator, NHS Property Services, said: "We put our all into this campaign and we are proud of the support we have offered but really the success of the campaign is credited to our colleagues who continue to bravely share their personals stories. Thank you so much to all of you, you are amazing.' 

'Another huge thank you goes to Melissa Crate and the fantastic team at Luminate, our longstanding wellbeing partner and Henpicked: Menopause in the Workplace who we have worked with throughout the campaign.' 

About the awards

Launched in 2013, the Inside Out Awards 'champion, celebrate, and acknowledge the impact in-house creative teams have on the brands they sit within' (Inside Out, 2023).