Dr Anne MacGregor, who runs the menopause clinic at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, feels women are not being given the option of weighing up the risk-benefit ratio themselves.

BBC: NEWS | Health | Health scares take their toll on HRT

In fact, if I had been blind folded and asked to guess where I had been taken to lunch, my likely response would have been a buffet-style restaurant, rather than London's St Bartholomew's Hospital.

BBC: Food glorious hospital food

Mr Chinegwundoh, who is a consultant urologist at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, one of the hospitals taking part in the study, said he and other consultants had long noticed how over-represented black prostate cancer patients were compared to their numbers in the general population.

BBC: Prostate cancer risk 'higher for black men'