Health: Contraceptive Services

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I thank the noble Lord for his question and reiterate the point I made; of course public health budgets have been under pressure and we know why that is. Nevertheless, there are some positive outcomes in the changing of services, such as services moving online, as they have done in London with good effect. It is also worth saying that, in the same survey that the noble Lord referred to, more than 50% of local authorities had either kept the same levels of service or increased them. That is also worth focusing on. Nevertheless, I recognise that there are pressures and that there are behaviours that we do not want to see, such as increasing abortions among the over-30s. We are making the case, and will be doing so in the spending review, for the benefits of public health spending on issues such as this.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, the provision of access to contraception is a part of the GP contract, but there is a growing number of GP practices that neither provide the service nor refer their patients elsewhere. What are the Government doing to stop that unacceptable situation for growing numbers of women?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness is quite right that there is an obligation in the GP contract. We are in the process of renegotiating the contract for the next financial year, and I shall certainly take that issue back and feed it in to the team that is carrying out the negotiation.