Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department provides to (a) practitioners and (b) producers on the use of telemedicine for abortion care.

The Department has published Required Standard Operating Procedures (RSOPs) for the approval of independent sector places for termination of pregnancy in England, which set outs the conditions and requirements for all independent sector providers to be approved for undertaking abortion care. The RSOPs include guidance for providers and practitioners on the provision of home-use early medical abortion (EMA) and sets out the expectation that home-use EMA must be carried out in line with clinical guidelines published by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

The Department has also published guidance to support practitioners to complete the EMA1 abortion form, which must be completed by the practitioner terminating the pregnancy to certify their opinion, formed in good faith, that the pregnancy will not exceed 10 weeks at the time when the first EMA pill is taken.