Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what correspondence his Department has had with (a) Marie Stopes, (b) BPAS, (c) RCOG, and (d) CQC on (a) monitoring compliance of use of abortion pills at home with the practice of use before the end of 10 weeks' gestation and (b) recording the number of instances of prescription of those pills to women beyond that gestation period.
Abortion data is published annually and data for 2020 is not due to be published until 2021. The data requires full quality assurance prior to release. The Code of Practice outlined in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 prohibits the pre-release of official statistics before the due date of publication.
The Department is carefully monitoring the impact of and compliance with the temporary approval of home administration of both sets of abortion medication during the COVID-19 pandemic. Officials have regular meetings with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Care Quality Commission and abortion service providers to discuss the impact and any issues arising.