Health: Contraceptive Services

Lord Patel Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I know the noble Lord is very active on this particular issue. We respect the evidence and are considering what to do about it at the moment.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, in response to a request for information, nearly 42% of local authorities reported that they had reduced sexual and reproductive health services because of budget cuts. All the directors of public health in local authorities report that services related to contraception have been reduced because of cuts to the public health budget. There has been a rise in the number of abortions for women around the age of 30 and above and a decrease in the uptake of long-acting reversible contraceptives among women over the age of 30. All this points to the cause being the reduction in the public health budget for local authorities. Evidence-based policy would suggest that that needs to stop or be reversed. I am sure that the Minister will say that he will fix it.

[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.