At Holland & Barrett, we aim to add quality years to life and truly champion wellness for all. We recognise women’s health has been underserved for too long, with women in the UK spending a significantly greater proportion of their lives in ill health and disability when compared with men1.
We’re launching a new three-year Women’s Wellness Commitment, which is part of our transformation strategy to become a destination for accessible wellness solutions that work – from products that are rooted in science alongside 150 years of trusted expert advice. Through this, we will address four key areas:
1. Democratising access to trusted support
2. Closing the research gap
3. Enabling health equity
4. Leading in product innovation with women in mind
As the leading health and wellness retailer, accessible on almost every high-street and online, we are ideally placed to help address inequalities and lead change, by supporting women with expert advice and tailored product solutions.
We understand that every woman’s wellness journey is unique and we’re proud to be long term supporters of better women’s health and continue to work hard to remove stigmas and barriers, particularly for women in menopause. Now, it’s time to build on this and do more.
Focus areas include:
Democratising access to trusted support:
Our Commitment will focus on reaching and supporting every woman from their first period to last and beyond, empowering women to optimise their overall wellness by understanding the rhythm of their hormone cycle across their lifespan. By proactively engaging with hormone health, we can help to improve other areas of wellness such as metabolism, mood, energy and better understanding of gynaecological conditions, fertility and the menopause as hormones sit at the core of these various life transitions where women can experience severe symptoms.
To support this ambition, we are proud to be launching a number of new initiatives to improve access to expert advice for all women.
Investing in colleague training
· Over 600 Women’s Health Coaches will be introduced to the high-street. Most H&B stores will have a dedicated Women’s Health Coach with expanded training created by medical professionals on the menstrual cycle, including common conditions, nutrition, gut health, sleep, mood and more, to offer free, personalised support and signposting to GPs when appropriate.
· All four thousand store colleagues are trained to offer guidance and personalised solutions around women’s health, including pain, bloating and vitamins for maintaining hormone health.
· Additionally, our existing training to support on the menopause will continue and is designed to also increase awareness and understanding for colleagues who may also experience symptoms associated with their hormones and menstrual cycle.
Expanding our menopause helpline, with the UK’s first free menstrual health video consultation service
· In partnership with the Endometriosis Foundation, trained nurses will offer further support and guidance on the hormone cycle and any symptoms.
· The specialist nurses can also help prepare individuals for their GP consultation and offer support for those living with chronic conditions such as endometriosis, PCOS and fibroids.
Running a multi-channel awareness campaign on hormone health.
· Our campaign ‘Own Every Day of The Month’ aims to empower women to optimise their overall wellness by understanding the rhythm of their hormone cycle across their lifespan and break down associated stigmas.
Customers can also find a hormone guide packed with expert advice to support women at every stage of their hormone cycle and the H&B Health Hub has been updated to include further advice and guidance on a wide range of women’s health topics. [Insert links to the Hormone Guide and the H&B Health Hub content].
Closing the research gap:
Recognising that there’s a lack of wellness research, we commit to commission our own ethnographic research on women’s general health and wellness in the UK and Ireland as well as reproductive health and women’s experiences. By looking at social and behavioural differences, we hope to help identify the invisible health gaps so that we can better address these
We will continue to invest significantly in better understanding women’s health needs, and solutions that work with a continued focus on identifying disparities within communities and backgrounds. As part of this, we commit that all future research we do at H&B across any topics will be inclusive of women’s health and diverse communities.
Enabling health equity:
Our mission to reach all women, across all communities remains. We understand that while a lot of progress has been made to break down women’s health stigmas and improve access, inequality in women’s health particularly in reference to minority backgrounds remain high, with a stark majority claiming what is readily available is not representative or relevant to them.
We will continue to invest in our Women's Health Community Fund to better reach and serve a broader spread of communities. Launched in 2023 in partnership with leading women’s health charity, Wellbeing of Women, we have to date donated £75,000 to support women’s health-focused projects to support thousands more women in underserved communities, with a specific focus on those from lower income families, ethnically diverse communities, those with disabilities and LGBTQ+. We are extending the fund for a further two years to help support Wellbeing of Women and Holland & Barrett’s joint mission of improving women’s health education.
We were the first retailer to launch a free, multi-language menopause consultation service seeing trained H&B menopause advisors offering guidance and symptom support in multiple languages, starting with Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati and Punjabi. Customers can already find menopause content online in different languages – on the H&B Menopause Hub. As part of our long-term commitment, we will look to expand our services and content to be able to reach more diverse communities.
Leading in product innovation:
We have the widest range of natural and holistic women’s health support products on the high-street, and our team of innovators and product creators are always scouring the globe for the latest science-backed ingredients and products, bringing the latest innovation to our customers. Currently we offer over 40 products in our Holland & Barrett range designed to help with the symptoms experienced through the female cycle, and hundreds more in proprietary ranges specially selected by our team of in house experts.
1 www.news-medical.net/news/20200522/UK-has-the-largest-gender-health-gap-in-G20-study-reveals.aspx
ABOVE ALL, WE ARE COMMITTED TO RAISING THE PROFILE OF WOMEN’S HEALTH AND ENSURING EQUITABLE ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND SUPPORT