Abortion

(asked on 7th November 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that vulnerable women are protected from (a) coercion and (b) other pressure to have an abortion.


Answered by
Maria Caulfield Portrait
Maria Caulfield
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
This question was answered on 14th November 2023

Safeguarding is an essential aspect of abortion care, and the Department’s Required Standard Operating Procedures (RSOPs) for approved independent sector abortion providers in England include the requirement that all abortion providers have effective arrangements in place to safeguard vulnerable women accessing home-use early medical abortion who may be experiencing coercion to end a pregnancy. Providers must ensure that all staff are trained in recognising the signs of potential abuse and coercion and know how to respond.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspects against all the Department’s RSOPs when it inspects an independent sector provider, and safeguarding procedures are included in the CQC’s Termination of Pregnancy inspection framework as areas to be considered during an inspection.

As commissioners of abortion care, NHS England and integrated care boards are responsible for ensuring abortion providers have appropriately trained staff to meet safeguarding requirements.

The standard of training for health care professionals is the responsibility of the health care independent statutory regulatory bodies who set the outcome standards expected at undergraduate level and approve courses. Higher Education institutions write and teach the curricula content that enables their students to meet the regulators outcome standards. Whilst not all curricula may necessarily highlight a specific condition, they all emphasise the skills and approaches a health care practitioner must develop to ensure accurate and timely diagnoses and treatment plans for their patients, including for abortion.

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