A new international standard sets out to help. Published on 7 September 2026, BS ISO 45010 is the first standard of its kind anywhere in the world, and it gives businesses a practical, evidence-based framework for supporting the people affected by menstruation and menopause at work. This article explains what the standard is, what it contains, and what it means for screen businesses.

(The standard applies internationally. This article addresses the UK legal context in England, Scotland and Wales; equality law differs in Northern Ireland.)

BS ISO 45010 is a voluntary international guidance standard, developed by the British Standards Institution (BSI) with the International Organization for Standardisation (ISO) and adopted in the UK as a British Standard. Its full title is Occupational health and safety management. Menstruation and menopause in the workplace. Guidance.

As the world’s first international standard on the subject, it builds on the earlier British standard BS 30416, published in 2023, extending it with clearer definitions, fuller explanatory notes and a wider range of practical suggestions. It also maps across to ISO 45001, the international standard for occupational health and safety management, so organisations already working to that framework can see how the two fit together.

Being a guidance standard, it does not create any new legal duty. It sets out what good practice looks like, so businesses can recognise it, adopt it and adapt it to their own circumstances. The full standard can be read free of charge on the ISO Online Browsing Platform, or you can pay for a downloadable or printed copy.

The standard covers the main areas a business needs to think about: workplace culture, policies and procedures, manager awareness and training, workplace design, and how to measure whether what you are doing is working. Alongside the guidance it provides practical tools, including:

• a template workplace charter for supporting menstrual and menopausal health at work;
• new guidance on disclosure and privacy, covering what information should be shared, with whom and how; and
• tailored guidance for small and medium-sized businesses, which matters to the many smaller companies and production entities across the sector.

It covers menstrual health as well as menopause, including conditions such as endometriosis, fibroids and heavy or painful periods, and the everyday realities of managing them on long shoots and location work where facilities can be limited. The emphasis throughout is practical: recognising the workplace factors that affect people experiencing menstruation and menopause, and identifying adjustments that help them stay well and productive at work.

It also offers concrete tools to put this into practice: a workplace adjustment passport that records agreed adjustments and follows a person between managers and productions, a trained menstruation and menopause representative to advocate for support, and toolkits and a review checklist to help HR and line managers act on the guidance.

The standard applies to organisations of every size and sector, and its guidance is written to be adapted rather than followed to the letter. That flexibility suits the screen industries, where workforces are mixed, largely freelance and often assembled for a single production. It is most useful to the people responsible for others and for working conditions: producers, line managers, heads of department, HR and people teams, health and safety leads, and those working on wellbeing and inclusion.

BS ISO 45010 is guidance, not law. It does not impose statutory obligations, and it does not offer medical or clinical advice. What it does is help you do well the things within your control like shaping a supportive culture, making sensible adjustments, and handling disclosure with care.

Women in their forties and fifties are often at their most experienced and most senior, exactly the people a production relies on. Yet the conditions of screen work can make symptoms harder to manage. Hot studios and lighting rigs, long shoots, location work and irregular hours all take a toll, and temperature or rest needs are not always easy to meet on set. Where there is little awareness, people tend to stay silent rather than ask for support.  Losing experienced women at this stage of their careers is both a business and an inclusion problem. The standard offers a way to address it before it costs a production its key people.

The standard arrives as the law moves in the same direction. Under the Employment Rights Act 2025, larger employers (those with 250 or more employees) will have to publish equality action plans setting out how they are addressing their gender pay gap and supporting employees through the menopause. Publishing a plan is voluntary now and is due to become mandatory from spring 2027, subject to secondary legislation that has not yet been made. Our separate article on equality action plans covers this more fully.

Menopause is not a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, and the new duty does not change that. But people experiencing symptoms may already be protected, depending on the facts, under sex, age or disability discrimination law. Menopausal symptoms can amount to a disability where they have a long-term and substantial effect on everyday activities, which brings with it the duty to make reasonable adjustments, and tribunals have upheld claims where menopause-related issues were mishandled. Adopting the standard now is a practical way to get ahead of both the incoming duty and that underlying risk.

The standard is voluntary, so you can start using it straight away. Practical first steps include:

• reading BS ISO 45010 and adopting the parts that fit your organisation;
• putting the template workplace charter (Annex F) in place, adapted to your productions;
• training managers to recognise symptoms, understand the law and respond well when someone raises a concern; and
• making straightforward adjustments where you can, such as flexible hours, access to a private rest space, and control over temperature and ventilation.

For larger organisations, these same steps are early preparation for the equality action plan duty in 2027.