Winner
Calling Time on Heavy and Painful Periods
Summary of work
Heavy and painful periods affect the majority of women, yet many delay seeking medical help for almost two years, and 31% never seek medical help at all. Normalisation, stigma and fear of dismissal suppress help-seeking and undermine confidence in navigating care.
The Period Symptom Checker, developed as part of the wider “Just a Period” campaign, was designed to empower women experiencing heavy bleeding and severe pain to understand when to seek help and confidently engage with their GP.
Co-created with gynaecologists, GPs and women with lived experience, the tool provides tailored guidance for those with symptoms serious enough to warrant medical attention, to support shared decision-making and reduce consultation anxiety. But building the checker was just the first step, the next was driving uptake.
In 2025, nearly 70,000 women completed the checker. For 92% of the women who completed the checker, their symptoms were deemed serious enough to receive a personalised GP letter. Post-checker survey results found that 6 in 10 respondents had since attended a GP appointment.
This programme demonstrates how insight-led, empathic, and ethically designed communication can strengthen patient confidence and convert unmet need into meaningful and more timely healthcare engagement.
Judges’ comments
The ‘Calling Time on Heavy and Painful Periods’ campaign had a clear understanding of the problem that needed addressing and the barriers to their audience, through robust research. It had good use of expert, patient, and celebrity stories to drive advocacy, as well as involving HCPs and those with lived experience to influence tools to ensure it was right for the audience. A campaign highlighting a 'condition' that is seriously underrepresented. Strong gender‑health insight and a clearly defined empowerment objective. Strategy and implementation were thoughtful, ethical and well‑executed.
