RACGP calls for better recognition of midlife pain. Understand the evidence, Australia’s guideline plans and why persistent pain merits assessment.
On 23 October 2026, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) called for greater awareness and research around menopause care, highlighting chronic pain during and after menopause as an issue that can be overlooked. The medical body also welcomed plans for Australia’s first national living clinical guideline for perimenopause and menopause.
The RACGP is challenging a dismissive explanation rather than replacing an established pain-treatment protocol: women should not have to accept chronic pain as an unavoidable part of getting older.
Dr Sharon Vasey, chair of the RACGP Specific Interests Menopause Health Subgroup, said women should not struggle to have their symptoms taken seriously. Her call was for greater recognition of the complex health changes that can accompany midlife.
The distinction matters. Recognising pain as worthy of attention is different from assigning it a cause. The College’s position puts the experience of pain back into the clinical conversation, rather than allowing age alone to close that conversation down. For a woman trying to explain a change in her body, that is a meaningful starting point.
The announcement followed the International Menopause Society’s World Menopause Day focus on chronic pain at midlife. It brought several concerns together:
Together, these points make recognition a clinical priority rather than simply a matter of reassurance. They also connect with the broader research questions around menopause and pain: naming an experience is a starting point for investigation and care.
The announcement sits alongside two distinct guideline efforts. Keeping them separate is particularly relevant to readers looking for answers about joint or muscle pain.
ABC News reported that a Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) guideline covers vasomotor and genito-urinary symptoms for women aged 40 and above.
Its scope does not include management of joint pain or bone density. It also excludes libido, depression and anxiety. The word menopause in a guideline’s title therefore does not mean that every concern arising during this stage of life is covered.
That distinction is useful when reading about desire, dryness and pain in midlife. A symptom’s relevance to a woman’s experience and its inclusion in a particular guideline are separate questions.
The national living clinical guideline welcomed by the RACGP is a separate planned development. The College said the plans followed a 2024 Senate inquiry report that identified significant gaps in medical education.
ABC reported that the national guideline was expected the following year and would be continually updated as new evidence emerged. It also reported that RANZCOG was contributing to its development.
The distinction is between guidance with a defined current scope and a broader national project still being developed. For readers following announcements about menopause care, checking which document is being discussed helps keep the promise of future guidance separate from the recommendations available now.
The RACGP’s announcement also addressed how menopause care is delivered. The College called for Medicare rebates that better support longer consultations. It said female GPs are more likely to provide longer consultations and complex care involving women’s health.
This is a service-access argument: the College wants consultation arrangements that support the kind of discussion it is advocating. Its emphasis on time sits alongside Simonis’s comments about the value of knowing a patient’s history and maintaining an ongoing clinical relationship.
The RACGP raised a related concern about pharmacy-based prescribing of menopausal hormone therapy, or MHT, in Victoria. It argued that access to means should not come at the expense of comprehensive and continuing care. Dr Vasey said a repeat prescription cannot replace assessment and a clinician’s understanding of medical history.
The editorial distinction is between access to a prescription and access to a fuller conversation. The RACGP is arguing that menopause care needs room for both symptom discussion and treatment decisions. That position is relevant to the pain story because the announcement asks clinicians to give a concern attention, not merely attach it to an existing prescription.
Several boundaries belong together when interpreting this announcement.
The prevalence figures were reported by the International Menopause Society and repeated by the RACGP. The release does not provide the underlying studies, populations or methods. They offer context for the College’s call, not a prediction of an individual woman’s experience.
The description of menopause-associated muscle and joint changes also does not establish that every midlife pain problem has a hormonal cause. An Irish Pharmacy Union clinical article makes the same distinction and calls for assessment of persistent or progressive symptoms.
The available reporting does not establish exactly how the planned national guideline will address chronic pain. Its future pain recommendations should not be inferred from the RACGP’s welcome for the project. The College’s arguments about longer consultations and pharmacy prescribing are also policy positions, not independent evaluations showing that one care model produces better outcomes than another.
These boundaries leave a clear practical message: persistent, progressive or concerning pain merits assessment by a qualified clinician rather than an assumption about menopause or ageing.
What would a more useful clinical conversation look like within the evidence described here? The RACGP’s answer centres on being heard, assessment in the context of medical history and a discussion of treatment options supported by current guidance.
For readers, this means pain can be raised as a concern in its own right. Establishing a hormonal explanation does not have to be the price of having the experience taken seriously. The reason for a consultation is the symptom and the need to understand it.
ABC’s reporting offers a complementary perspective. Guideline development group chair Catriona Melville said clinicians need clear evidence for patient-centred discussions about available treatment options. Simonis also cautioned that women do not all experience the same type or severity of menopause symptoms.
Together, those points support a conversation shaped around the person rather than a standard account of what menopause is supposed to feel like. Guidance can inform the available options while the individual discussion addresses the symptoms actually being experienced.
A useful question for that discussion is whether hormonal transition might be relevant and what else needs assessment. Another is which guidance applies to the concern being discussed. These are ways of seeking a clearer explanation with qualified care, not instructions to pursue a particular treatment. The value of better recognition is that it opens that discussion.
Turning the RACGP’s call into better clinical practice will mean giving midlife pain proper assessment and consultation time while using evolving menopause guidance to inform individual discussions, rather than settle them in advance.
Midlife pain can be reduced to a hormonal explanation before its wider context is understood. Refemina addresses that confusion through research-led coverage that distinguishes established evidence from uncertainty, helping women make sense of hormonal transition alongside other contributors to changing health without treating every concern as a menopause symptom.
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