Our history

Women’s Health Concern (WHC) was established in 1972 and it became the patient arm of the BMS in July 2012. WHC provides independent advice to inform and reassure women about their gynaecological, sexual and post reproductive health.

Women’s Health Care was founded in 1972 by visionary nurse, Joan Jenkins. Joan was passionate about helping women with their healthcare needs at a time when limited information was available. Women’s Health Care began as an open-access clinic in London and its services were subsequently expanded to provide women with telephone and email counselling and advice.

In 1977, Women’s Health Care was legally constituted as a charitable organisation with Professor John Studd, a Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist at King’s College Hospital, London (KCH), as Chairman. Professor Studd’s early research was on chronic renal disease and high blood pressure in pregnancy but in 1969 he established the first menopause clinic in the UK. The clinic was initially located in Birmingham, but it moved to KCH in London in 1974. In 2008, Professor Studd was awarded the Blair Bell Gold Medal by the Royal Society of Medicine, an award given every five years to the Obstetrician/Gynaecologist who has made the greatest lifetime contribution to the specialty.

In 1980, Women’s Health Care became a registered charity, and it was renamed Women’s Health Concern (WHC). Dr Gerald Swyer, a Consultant Endocrinologist at University College Hospital, London who established the UK’s first fertility clinic, was the founding WHC Chairman from 1980 to 1993. Dr Swyer left a donation to WHC, the Gerald Swyer Memorial Trust, and from 2005 this was used to fund a memorial lecture at the WHC Annual Symposium on women’s health*.

Professor John Stevenson, Consultant Physician and Endocrinologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital, London, and Reader in Metabolic Medicine at Imperial College, London became WHC Chairman in 1993. As Director of a Medical Research Institute at Imperial College London, Professor Stevenson’s particular interest in calcium and bone metabolism and their regulation by sex steroids, subsequently extended into the effects of sex hormone deficiency and replacement both on the skeleton and on the cardiovascular system. In 1993, he jointly established the first Female Heart Disease Clinic in the UK at the Royal Brompton Hospital.

In July 2012, WHC became the patient arm of the British Menopause Society and in May 2025, it was removed from the register of the Charity Commission for England and Wales. This merger has enabled WHC to continue its work to support women of all ages, while retaining the well-established WHC branding.