Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to increase the use of long-acting reversible contraception in general practice.

Sexual health services are commissioned at a local level to meet the needs of the local population. The Government has mandated local authorities in England to commission comprehensive open access sexual health services, including “advice on, and reasonable access to, a broad range of contraceptive substances and appliances”. In addition, NHS England commissions contraception provided as an additional service under the general practitioner contract. Prescriptions of long acting reversible contraception (LARC) in sexual and reproductive health services increased by 25% between 2012/13 and 2016/17 from 272,000 to 342,000. However, in primary care prescriptions of LARC decreased from 1.3 million to 1.2 million. Departmental officials are working with Public Health England to take forward actions on reproductive health following publication of their consensus statement and will consider ways to promote access to the full range of contraception through this work.