Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Chat. Today is the first of our menopause awareness podcast celebrations, and I'm delighted to be joined by two guests, Charlotte Pace and Lindsay Hughes, who will be sharing their thoughts and experiences around creating inclusive work places. Before we get started, let me hand over to them both for their brief introductions.
Do you wanna go first, Charlotte? Cool. So I qualified as a veterinary nurse in 2003, whilst working in practise in London.
In the same year I went to the Royal Veterinary College and in 2006 became the dedicated nurse for cardiology at the Queen Mother Hospital for Animals. In 2010, passed the veterinary technician specialist in cardiology, the first person to do that outside the US. And since then I've been teaching and writing on matters cardiology and in the veterinary world, and I'm currently BVNA president.
Fantastic. That's brilliant, thank you, and over to you, Lindsay, please. Hi there.
So I'm Lindsay. I started working in practise in 2002, qualified as a veterinary nurse in 2012. Since then I've had various first worked in various first opinion practises in head nurse or management roles.
So currently I'm one of the small animal directors of a busy small animal hospital in Wiltshire. I'm jointly responsible for all aspects of running the practise, streamlining processes, auditing, supporting staff development, best practise, as well as bringing a new perspective to the board of directors as the only nurse within the directorship. So alongside working full time, I'm programmes, and have various leadership qualifications, and currently, undertaking CIPD qualifications in HR, and alongside that, I also OSI examine and guest lecture in business management.
Fantastic. That's brilliant, thank you. Oh well, before we get started, I just wanted to say thank you both so much for joining us.
I know how busy you are and really appreciate your time for doing this with the webinar vet so thank you. No problem. Can we start, right at the beginning, so just while you both think it's important that we raise awareness about the menopause?
Sure, I'm quite happy to kick off if you like, and then, then Lindsay, you can take over. So, basically, the reason why we, we think it's important to talk about the menopause is that there was a recent study done by the CIPD in 2019, which said that 3 out of 5 women feel that it affects the menopause affects their, their working life. And so I think when we've got a profession that is so heavily female dominated.
Not, not saying that other people can't experience menopause or per menopause, but I think it's really important that we, we recognise this. It's, it's not a protected characteristic, but yet something that affects so many people, is something that we really do need to, to talk about. Brilliant.
Anything you wanna add, Lindsay? So I agree with everything that that Charlotte's just said about, you know, there's a high proportion of, of veterinary workers tend to be female, specifically in the nursing side of that, we are predominantly a female led industry. So obviously.
For that very reason, but actually for me it's more than that, it's about raising awareness so that those staff members around the, the team members that may be going through symptoms of perimenopausal or menopause have got the support and there's the awareness within the team. Because I think, certainly we'll talk about it a little bit later, but we undertook some training at our practise, and we may well have scarred some of the younger members of our leadership team who are in their early twenties, but they were completely surprised by some of the symptoms and and how it can impact that they were just completely unaware of. Yeah, absolutely.
No, that's a really good point. Thank you. OK, fantastic.
So Charlotte, can I just ask you about any updates or any initiatives that the BVNA are doing that relates specifically to the menopause because I think there's a lot going on, isn't there in that space at the moment. Yeah, there is, and I'm really grateful to be able to to tell your listeners all about it. So the BVNA are work in conjunction with the RCVS on a project called VN Futures, and within that we also then have a subset group, which is diversity, inclusivity, widening participation group.
And as part of that this year, we have done a focus on the menopause. And so our senior vice president, Alex Taylor has put together a menopause toolkit, which is available for everybody. So if you just type in BVNA menopause, and it will come up with the tool kit, and like I say, because it's part of the VN Futures project, it's free for everybody.
And in that, it's got things like a panel discussion that Lindsay took part took part in, with a, with a few other people and also a vet representative as well from the BVA Anna Judson. And it has blogs, it has interviews. It's also got a load of signposting as well for, for all manner of of different people because as I alluded to, menopause, it's stereotypically women.
And it's stereotypically the hot flushes, but actually it's so much more than that. And you know, we have, we have issues, you know, things like, trans or, intersex or people who are. Who've maybe not even disclosed to their employer.
And so there are helplines there for, for everybody who may be suffering from this kind of, this, this kind of condition. Fantastic. That sounds brilliant.
And yeah, we can, we always release a blog with our podcast, so we can absolutely link that on there as well, just so people want to have an easy way to find it. That sounds amazing, because yeah, we, on a similar sort of note, we get a lot of people in our team who are men and they're like, I don't know where to start with helping people around me with this sort of thing, . And I guess it ties in quite nicely, Lindsay, to what you were saying earlier.
Have you got any sort of examples of, you know, challenges like this that, people might face in daily practise life? I think there are so many, aren't there? And it, it kind of goes across multiple professions, really.
But I suppose from our perspective, you know, all of the symptoms of, of menopause, per-menopause that we were talking about earlier, they'll be the most common ones that people think about, which will be probably hot flushes. That's what most people will probably come up with and say. But in actual fact, there's There's loads, isn't there?
There's, you know, at least 30 different symptoms that people will come up, may experience and there's, you know, I can't quite remember the percentage breakdown, but there's a, you know, proportion of people that will have minimal symptoms, some will have moderate, and then a smaller proportion that will have extreme. But everybody's journey is completely different. So I think, you know, a lot of the things that affect the team that I work with aren't actually those hot flashes, but for those that do, you know, we've looked at things, for example, uniform, you know, that could be a big issue.
So, the old tunics that nurses, some nurses still wear, they're really thick. And just, you know, having a look at, and you, you can probably see now what I'm wearing, you know, not only is it's a sustainable, Uniform. It's made from plastic bottles, but it's also keeping you cool when it's, when you're hot.
And actually for those staff members, when it's cold, actually keeps you warm as well. It's it's very strange that it does both things, but it does. But there's the things sort of like brain fog, you know, memory loss, how that can affect you mentally as well, not feeling good enough to do your job.
So the men The mental health side of stuff, I think, is huge. And especially, I think, you know, the industry that we're in we're very caring, but we question ourselves and, you know, if we're perhaps maybe not quite where we normally are, or where someone would normally expect us to, they might not understand that. And it's having that, that, you know, we talked about earlier, the education to our whole team.
So I think that's probably one of the biggest things, you know, Vets and nurses, you know, and, and our client care team, we're in jobs where we've got a lot of responsibility, and that, that itself can be a pressure risk but as well as, you know, my role is I support a big team. Someone will come to me and say, did you get that email? Do you remember that thing that I asked you, and I've sat there like.
God, no. So I just feel like, you don't feel like you're not doing a good enough job. So I would say actually, that's probably one of the biggest challenges.
The, you know, we can change, like I say, the uniform, we can put air conditioning in. It's though it's the mental health support that I think we really need to make sure they're on top of that. And I, I'd just like to come in there as well because I think Lindsey's quite right about sort of the, the other aspects of it.
And also, you know, and the reason why we're talking about it is because it still is deemed to be a taboo or embarrass embarrassing, but yet it affects so many of us. Yeah. And, but it's, it's being mindful not to be judgmental.
And this is sort of what I say about everything, not just menopause, but one person's journey is totally different to somebody else's. So just because you experience this doesn't mean that that other person is gonna experience it exactly the same. So it's just being open minded and recognising that everybody deals with things differently or everyone's journey is different.
Yeah, absolutely. So are there any sort of like specific changes that either of you are aware of that is going on in the veterinary profession or anything that you've seen in practise that I've, you know, been introduced specifically for the menopause and is there any sort of like successful stories that you could share around that, please? Yeah, I think a lot of associations, as Charlotte's already alluded to, are doing a lot of work on raising awareness of the menopause in the workplace.
Certainly having menopause policies in place is hugely important. And I think that's something that, not only protects the team but raises awareness, like we said, and committing to those, you know, we, we wrote a policy in, in, in my practise, but we included, so we've got a wellbeing team and and members of that wellbeing. Team, you know, suffer from chronic illnesses, but also we have specifically members who are passionate about raising menopause awareness.
So, you know, we, we use them, we wrote the policy together. So it wasn't sort of from an up the top down, it was inclusive, because we needed to get that. We need to look at the culture.
It's the culture that's the biggest issue, I think. So there were things like I said to you, you know, we've changed the uniform, putting in a water, cooler, downstairs and our main fairly big hospital. So our Upstairs team have got access to the kitchen, but the downstairs team just might need something to cool them down.
So actually having that cold water, making sure our air conditioning units are in the right place, desks are in the right place, allowing people to have breaks. But one of the things that we did, which may seem really small. So for, for those of us who have, the joys of going through perimenopause or menopause, we know that obviously there can be issues with your periods, unexpected bleeding, heavy bleeding, feeling hot and sweaty, and so we actually have, well-being baskets in each of our, sort of toilet bathroom areas which have got sanitary products in.
They've got, deodorants, wipes, washes. We've got spare uniform and baskets in there so that nobody needs to feel uncomfortable if they're in that situation. So those are just some small things that we have put in place here.
But the biggest thing, like I said, is just talking about it, you know, having it as it's, it's normal, and having that in your workplace. How have you had it since introducing all those little things, you know, all those nice personal things that people I imagine would really appreciate, have your team respond as well to them? Yeah, absolutely, I think they feel like they're, they're being listened to, you know, the other thing which I.
We did here, we actually had an external training provider come in and do menopause training for managers, and our leadership team. So our directors, managers and leaders, whether they're male or female, all went on that course, because it's really important that you, you know, our, our staffing age ranges from 19 up to sort of mid-60s. So there's a wide range of staff there, and some of our managers or leaders, sorry, are in their early 20s.
So they, they won't understand those of us who are in our 40s, you know, well 40s or younger, what we're going through. So how can they support those staff members that that are within their team. So, like you were saying earlier about, you know, male members of the team understanding, it actually did for one of our male directors as well, you know, give him an understanding of what his wife was going through.
But it's really, it's really important, and then that. Like I said, with, along with our well-being team, I think, I think it's made a, I'm probably because I am part of it, and that's sort of a life process that I'm going through at the moment that I'm super passionate about it. But I do find it really quite sad that before this point, we haven't done as much about it as we, we should have done, because, like Sarah, like, sorry, Sarah, like Charlotte said, it's a big taboo, or still seems to be a taboo in some workplaces.
And I don't understand, you know, why that is, really. Yeah. No, absolutely, and the more we can keep talking about it, the more awareness there is and hopefully, you know, we'll continue to move forward and forward.
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We'd love to see you there. And if you'd like to get involved again this year, or if you'd like to join us for the day next time, please click the link in the description below to find out more. Brilliant, so you touched upon communication, so how important do you think strong open communication within veterinary teams is with the menopause?
Well, huge. I think, yeah, I think if you don't make it, I don't know, it needs it, like I say, it's a cultural thing, isn't it? It needs to be something.
And it's not just for us, you know, it's not just the menopause that we do that with. It's multiple other things, chronic illnesses, mental health. It's really important, I think, especially this day and age, to just have an, a, a, an open, open communicate open dialogue about it.
You know, I know. Mentioned it a couple of times, but for us we're a fairly big practise, and having that wellbeing team is really important because those people that are as passionate about it as I am, and there's quite a few members, we've got 10 members of that team, all from different, you know, areas that they're passionate about. That, that's what drives it forward.
It's, it has to come from within the team, I think, rather than it being, you know, leaders absolutely have to be on board and support it, but you have to give that voice to your team. I think that that Lindsay makes a really good point, and I think what Lindsay's done in a practise is absolutely fantastic. You know, and it's something to really aspire to.
Unfortunately, that isn't the way it is sort of across the board and, you know, where you don't have these kind of changes that have been put in place or, you know. Water coolers and things like that, or, or, you know, having regular breaks, because we all know how how stressed that the profession is at the moment, how busy it is. It is the, you know, the one thing that we can do as individuals is open that that discussion is saying, I'm, I'm, I'm struggling, you know, I, I personally, I struggle in theatre because when I'm monitoring an anaesthetic, I still work in first opinion practise.
I can't turn the temperature down because I've got an anaesthetized patient on the table. And so, you know, I've now got adjustments where now I have an ice pack kind of thing that I put around me, you know, and it's those kind of things and it's explaining why I'm taking an ice pack into theatre, so that other people are aware that actually, yeah, I, I do find this quite difficult. I think I'd add to your point there, Charlotte, about our practise.
You're quite right, and I appreciate that through discussions that we've had, but it just takes one person in that practise to, and this has to come from the leaders within that practise because I suspect, you know, Charlotte's probably raised things in her practise and other nurses I've spoken to within VNA Council have raised stuff. We are fortunate now that we have nurses in leadership roles, and they have, they are the voice, and, you know, and even if it's not nurses, if it's vets in leadership roles as well, we need to be looking at actually how can we retain our staff, how can we make our staff feel valued, and these things, which is, you know, it's not a big thing. To put some sanitary products in a restroom, you know, it's, it's not a big thing to have spare uniform there.
It's not, you know, I understand obviously the water cooler, there's an expense there to that, but actually there may be other ways around that of providing that for your staff, looking at your uniform stuff, you're gonna have to replace your uniform anyway, and the training side of stuff, I mean. It really wasn't there are other providers out, obviously lots of providers out there. It wasn't hugely expensive for the, for what we were gonna get out of it, and I think you, you've got, people have got to realise that the staff are our most valuable asset.
And, and it, it frustrates me when people say, oh, I haven't, haven't got time for that. I can't do it. It, it doesn't take very long to make those small changes to sit down and listen an hour, an hour to talk to somebody who is, who is going through something that may help you write a menopause policy so that everybody then can adhere to that and understand why, yeah, it's quite, it's, it's sad, isn't it, really.
Yeah, absolutely. We've actually, as part of this series, we've got a lady called Claire Knox, who's from a company called See Here Thrive, and she's fantastic. She's, you know, if anybody is kind of looking, you know, thinking, where do we start with this sort of thing, you know, would highly recommend her.
She does exactly what it sounds like what you did Lindsay where she goes into teams, so yeah, absolutely couldn't agree more, . Brilliant, so in terms of implementing policies and you know, what's, where the practises start, like how can they kind of make that first step if they haven't done already to create more inclusive and supportive environments for their teams. Don't go, Charlotte or do you want me happy to.
So with regard to, I, I would, I would start with having a conversation with, with your teams. Now, obviously there's different size teams out there. So whether you do that as a whole practise or whether you do that with specific, staff members, but having that conversation, you know, this is something that's important.
I think you have to start with that, you know, as a practise. We feel this is important and we would like to do something on this. Would anybody like to to get involved, and then I think writing the policy, there's quite a few templates out there, which is why I'm sort of looking at Charlotte.
I'm not sure if there is one within the BVA, is there one in the BVNA? Yeah, yeah, there is, yeah, we've got one in our toolkit, absolutely, yeah. So there are templates out there for you to access.
I mean they, you know, they're there. They are templates obviously, feel free to use them. Obviously, I would suggest adapting them to your practise and talking to, like I said, presenting them, having a discussion, is this, does this work for us?
And I would also say that not having it, it, you know, having it fluid. So you've set your policy and your protocol, but that doesn't just need to sit there now forever. Like you can review that, you can update it, you can tweak it.
I, I review all of our policies depending on what they are every 6 to 12 months because things change. And just, you know, continuing to get, get the staff buy in, I think is the most important thing. Absolutely brilliant.
And are there, say if you're in like if you're in a practise right now and you're listening and you're thinking, oh, I think what we're doing already is enough, but you're not sure, are there any kinds of like specific tools that you'd recommend for veterinary teams where they can kind of assess their work environment and identify if there are any areas that might need improvement in terms of the menopause support? I, I think again accessing the toolkits that are available for the associations out there, there is quite a lot of information online about supporting staff with menopa, you know, there's non-veterinary based associations and organisations that can support with that. So, ACAS is one of those, and there are other companies like that that provide really good useful help.
A lot of . Practises that have HR external HR companies that support them as well. They are brilliant, they will have things from a health and safety point of view that will obviously protect the practise as well, but they'll give you best practise, suggestions and ideas, and again, they can help with any risk assessments that you need to do.
So there's lots of resources. I think maybe that's sometimes why it seems like a big thing to do and perhaps maybe stuff doesn't happen, it's because it just seems like it's a big. A big job to do and it it doesn't necessarily need to be, like I said, the templates are there, just start off on those and and build, you know, it to, to the needs of your practise, but there is loads and loads of resources out there that people will be able to access.
Fantastic. No, that's brilliant. And again, we can put all that on the blog so people can find that easily.
We did an Instagram poll before we kind of knew we, you know, what specifically we were doing, for this, campaign. And one thing that was really interesting, we asked our community, do they feel supported in practise around the menopause, and 100% said no, which was right. Staggering really.
So I think it's so wonderful to hear all these, you know, little changes, Lindsay that you've brought in and all the talk at Charlotte that you know they're out there that people might not be aware of. So absolutely the more we can kind of spread awareness on on that, the better. In terms of looking forward, what do you hope to see, in terms of progress and support with the menopause in the veterinary profession?
I hope that you ask that poll again that 100% people say they feel supported. That's what I'd like to see. I think there's probably some things that we need to consider, sorry that I forgot to mention before from, a practise leadership, leadership perspective in that we were talking about obviously, people coming forward if they, cos obviously.
You don't always know if somebody is, is experiencing symptoms and that that's having an impact on them. And we talk about having this open culture, which, you know, we can have, but not everybody feels comfortable coming forward. And often it can depend who your line manager is, who your director is, who you, you know, it is that you're supposed to go to.
So again, it might be worth having a think about that, how your practise is set up. So again, I know we're a bigger practise. But we have a mentor system as well, so that the staff members have someone else that they can go to who isn't in a leadership role, who they can open up to, who then can have that conversation to say, I will take this for you if you don't feel comfortable, I'll make these suggestions.
So I think that's something that is useful to have, but I appreciate, obviously, if you're a small team, it might not always be possible. But I I would hope if you were a smaller team that you would have a sort of closer relationship that you might well be able to feel comfortable saying those things. So I think going forward.
I would really like just. Practises or anyone listening to this who is in leadership management role and thinks, actually, I could make these changes in my practise. Like I said, they just need to be small things.
It needs to just be having conversations, and those things don't cost money. I know it takes time, but the time, it's so important to make time for your team, your staff. So if more people are having those conversations, little changes that happen, then will become bigger conversations, and it just makes such a big difference.
I think just to add to that, I completely agree with what Lindsey said. I think what I would just add is that I think I would really like to get away this, this, this shame idea an embarrassment around something that is perfectly natural. And, you know, one of those things is that it's been Taken through parliament, I think, BVA are working on something which we fully support, which, which is getting the menopause becoming a protected characteristic.
So we're not ashamed to talk about something like I say, that is perfectly natural to more than half the population. Brilliant, absolutely. I think that's, that ends the podcast perfectly, so thank you both so much.
Is there anything final that you just wanted to add that we might not have covered in our, in our conversations today? I don't think so. I think hopefully we've covered most things.
Yeah, thank you, thank you for having us. That's, that's our absolute pleasure. And please, you know, keep up all the great work with the BVNA and if the webinar vet can do anything at all to help, then please just let us know.
We'd be delighted to thank you. OK, alright, thank you both. Thank you.
Bye bye.
