NHS waiting lists for contraception are completely unacceptable
October 15, 2023 11:00 amLast week, while at a wedding in Rome, a mistake on my part resulted in complications with my reproductive coil. On my return to London, a quick call to 111 followed by a visit to the urgent care centre sorted the issues, thankfully – but my initial mistake meant I needed to get a new, a lack of access to the suitable centres and facilities, and the number of practitioners trained to actually do it.
I’m not alone in my experience: some women can see waits of up to 16 weeks for coil appointments. According to a 2020by the Advisory Group on Contraception, there has been an 18 per cent decrease in real terms contraception spend since 2015, the number of local authorities reducing sites commissioned to deliver contraception has increased, and this in turn has seen a fall in prescriptions for long-acting reversible contraception, such as the coil.
We should never have to feel embarrassed about taking care of our sexual and reproductive health. I remember in my twenties doing the responsible thing and regularly visiting a sexual health clinic off Tottenham Court Road in London to get another prescription for either a pill, or an implant, or an injection, or a coil – and it was mortifying each and every time.