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The Department of Health (DH)announced in February 2008 that £26.8 million has been made available to help improve young people’s access to contraception, with the aim of reducing the number of teenage pregnancies.1

The DH will allocate £14 million through strategic health authorities to help them develop innovative ways to ensure access for young people to sexual health advice and contraception; for example, by supporting the provision of advice on contraception at abortion clinics to prevent repeat abortions. The ten regional health authorities will be invited to submit proposals, and, if successful, the funding will be used to run pilots. Primary care trusts will receive the remaining £12.8 million as part of their main allocations.

Announcing the investment, Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo stated: ‘There is increasing evidence of the key role contraception plays in preventing teenage pregnancy. We need to use this evidence and improve access to the full range of methods of contraception in many areas, particularly those with high and increasing rates of teenage pregnancy and high rates of abortion.’

This funding should help local health teams to promote the full range of methods of contraception to women of all ages. This includes advocating the use of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) methods such as intrauterine devices, the intrauterine system, injectable contraceptives, and implants. The NICE guideline on Long-acting reversible contraception recommends the use of these methods, and highlights a number of associated benefits, such as:2

• the effectiveness of LARC methods does not depend on daily concordance—in contrast, effectiveness of barrier methods and the oral contraceptive pill is dependent on their precise and consistent use all LARC methods are more cost effective than the combined oral contraceptive pill
• an increase in the use of LARC methods will reduce the number of unintended pregnancies.

In this month’s issue of Guidelines in Practice, as part of the Guidelines Revisited series, Dr Sam Rowlands, Freelance Specialist in Contraception and Reproductive Health, discusses the NICE guideline on Long-acting reversible contraception (click here). He summarises the key recommendations from the guideline, and highlights the barriers to implementation faced by primary care.

1. http://www.gnn.gov.uk/environment/fullDetail.asp?ReleaseID=350721&NewsAreaID=2&NavigatedFromDepartment=False
2. National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. Long-acting reversible contraception. Clinical Guideline 30. London: NICE, 2005.G

Julia Morris, Editor; julia.morris@mgp.ltd.uk