Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report entitled Women's Lives, Women's Rights: Strengthening Access to Contraception Beyond the Covid-19 Pandemic, published by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Sexual and Reproductive Health on 10 September 2020, what recent assessment his Department has made on the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on women’s access to contraception; and what steps his Department is taking to help ensure access to a comprehensive range of contraception types during the covid-19 outbreak.

Sexual and reproductive health services are open during the pandemic though some are temporarily reducing their face-to-face appointments and may only be able to see emergency or urgent cases in person. This is to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection. The Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare have published clinical advice to support ongoing provision of effective contraception which health professionals should work to, which is available at the following link:

https://www.fsrh.org/documents/fsrh-ceu-clinical-advice-to-support-provision-of-effective/

Women need to be able to continue to access contraception during the pandemic and in line with these guidelines, where services should ensure that there is clear, up to date signposting for patients and partner services as to what local contraceptive services are currently available, how these can be accessed, and where available, to national online services.