ISO 45010 is here – now comes the part that actually matters

On 7th September 2026, the International Organization for Standardization published ISO 45010, the first international standard giving employers guidance on supporting menstruation and menopause in the workplace.

We always knew this standard was coming. As a period care company working with organisations across the UK for years, it was never a question of if, only when. So, while the launch of ISO 45010 this month is not a surprise to us, it’s a milestone we’ve been waiting for and working towards, and we’re glad that it’s here!

Until now, the organisations that came to us didn’t do it because a standard suggested it. The intentions and the events that spurred the initiative varied: A group of women banding together to ask why there were no products in the staff toilets; An HR team folding period care into a broader wellbeing and equality push; A facilities manager who’d simply had enough of hearing “we’re out again.” The motivation was always internal, occasionally personal, and often slower than it needed to be.

We hope that ISO 45010 will inspire change in the organisations that maybe have not been fortunate to have those internal champions, or are maybe too large of an organisation to hear those voices calling for access to period care. For the first time, there’s international guidance that names physical provision explicitly, not as a gesture, but as a genuine workplace requirement.

But it also raises a question we can not ignore: when organisations move to comply, what will they actually buy?

There are two paths open to them. One is the cheapest option available: products packed with plastic and synthetic materials, sourced for price alone, dispensed from a basket by the sink because a box needed ticking. The other is a genuine evaluation of what good provision looks like, for the people using it and for the planet the products end up on.

DAME currently supplies dispensers to the entire North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, supplying period products for staff across 61 stations, and we are in discussions with two further ambulance trusts about doing the same. Our dispensers are also used by the National Trust, working with distribution partners to make provision possible across large, multi-site estates.

For ambulance staff working long, physically demanding and unpredictable shifts, this is not a workplace perk. Leaving a shift to find a shop isn’t practical, and improvised alternatives are uncomfortable, distracting and undignified.