Debbie Killingback founded the Hot Flush Club

DEMANDS are growing for paid menopause leave and more support for women struggling with gruelling symptoms, but the idea has been blanked by the government.

Kemi Badenoch, the minister for women and inequalities, said last week that she would not endorse a trial of the measure and refused to add the menopause as a protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010.

Former actor Debbie Killingback, who founded the online support forum the Hot Flush Club, told the New Journal: “I thought that was unbelievable. I just thought we’ve done all this fighting to be recognised and I find it really, really quite sad that we’ve actually got somebody we thought would be helping us in parliament.

She added “Unless you know about the symptoms, it’s really hard to comment because you think when you’re in your 20s and 30s that it’s never going to happen to you. I’m never going to be one of these women. I’m not going to behave like that.”

Ms Killingback, who lives in Hampstead, said her menopause symptoms included “terrible joint pain” and insomnia that was “crushing”.

She added: “I suffered from terrible anxiety and panic attacks that came from nowhere. I couldn’t get in the lift. I had cognitive behavioural therapy because I became frightened of enclosed spaces.

“We all expected it to be an accumulation of hot flushes. Well, it’s completely not.”

Ms Killingback started the Hot Flush Club five years ago when she was diagnosed with a brain tumour so was unable to take hormone replacement therapy.

“I was going through this terrible insomnia moment. The only way I seemed to be getting any help was by talking to friends and other people that were going through this,” she said, adding that she runs the forum “because there are many women out there that do need support and actually feel like they don’t want to be here anymore.”

Liz Wheatley

Unison’s Camden branch secretary Liz Wheatley said the government’s appointment of its first “menopause employment champion”,  Helen Tomlinson, on Monday was “words with no meaning”.

She said: “I noticed that the person they appointed is going to continue in their existing job whilst carrying out this role. And to me, those two things mean that they’re not serious.

“If you are serious about supporting people who are experiencing the menopause in the workplace there has to be resources behind it.

“There has to be flexibility about working hours, there has to be support if you need additional leave, there has to be sympathetic line management who understand that as well.”

Department for work and pensions minister Mims Davies said: “We are committed to ensuring any stigma is addressed associated with menopause and its symptoms which can vary.” She added Ms Tomlinson would assist women at any age to be properly supported in work.