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Chemists hand out the Pill to over 16's in pilot scheme

c pill

 

The contraceptive Pill is being given to teenage girls without prescription by chemists as part of a controversial NHS pilot scheme.

Pharmacists in Southwark and Lambeth, two boroughs in South London with the highest teenage pregnancy rates, are running trials of the scheme, which has the approval of the Department of Health. Three pharmacies have been given permission to offer contraceptive consultations to girls aged over 16, and colourful posters emblazoned with "the Pill without prescription" in large letters are set to advertise the project.

Southwark Primary Care Trust has been working for the past year to set up the project, developing a training course with King's College London that could be adopted if the pilot schemes were replicated elsewhere in the UK.

For more than a month, young women asking for the morning-after pill at Ridgeway pharmacy have been offered a private consultation on longer-term alternatives. Nearly 50 have switched to an oral contraceptive after being taken through similar checks to those that would be carried out by a doctor.

Cuthbert Churinder, a chemist who has been trained by King's College, said the pilot scheme had been surprisingly successful in the first few weeks - despite not being advertised.

"We do a lot of morning-after pills here, I think the highest number in Southwark and Lambeth, about 220 consultations every month," he said.

"I think the PCT is doing the right thing to have chosen us to offer longer-term and more reliable contraception to these young girls."

The pilot project is likely to attract criticism from those concerned that making contraception more readily available to 16-year-old girls might encourage them to have sex. Mark Haughton, from the Christian Medical Fellowship, is not convinced that providing the Pill without prescription would make any difference to teenage pregnancies.

He said: "I'm not aware of any evidence this is going to be effective. It may be pouring petrol on the flames."

The Government is struggling to meet its target of halving teenage pregnancies by 2010, and in Southwark the teenage pregnancy rate is 76 out of every 1,000 girls under 18.

Opponents said there was no evidence that providing the Pill over the counter would make a difference. In England in 2007, 42 of every 1,000 girls under the age of 18 became pregnant - the majority unintentionally. Half of those pregnancies ended with an abortion.

The idea of training pharmacists to provide the contraceptive pill was first proposed two years ago by Lord Darzi, the then Health Minister, who said that there was strong evidence that better provision of contraception would significantly reduce unintended pregnancies.