Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, in the context of the International Safe Abortion Day 2022 which took place on 28 September 2022, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure young people can access early medical abortion via the telemedicine pathway; and what recent assessment she has made of the extent to which young people are supported to consent, if they have capacity to do so, to early medical abortion via the telemedecine pathway.

In March 2022, Parliament voted in favour of making the temporary approval allowing home-use of both pills for early medical abortions a permanent measure for women and girls in England and Wales. The Abortion Act 1967 does not set a legal age limit for access to early medical abortion via the telemedicine pathway. The Department continues to work with NHS England, the Care Quality Commission and abortion providers to ensure that children and young people have timely access to all abortion services, including telemedicine abortion services.

While no recent assessment has been made, the Department commissioned the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health to develop independent safeguarding guidance for children and young people under 18 years old accessing early medical abortion services, which was published in August 2022. The guidance states that young people have an evolving capacity to make decisions about their lives and to consent to medical treatment and recommends that early medical abortion services assess whether a young person is able to consent using national frameworks and the services’ own internal guidance.