Teenage Pregnancies Success for County
13/03/2006
Teenage pregnancy figures across the UK are now at their lowest since the 1980s.
Cotswold and Vale Primary Care Trust, which leads on sexual health services for Gloucestershire, today announced that numbers of under-18 girls getting pregnant had reduced by 17.7 percent since 1998.
This far exceeds the national figure for the fall in teenage conception rates, which was announced as 11.1 percent. It also exceeds the 2004 national target of 15 percent.
“This is excellent news for Gloucestershire,” said Cotswold and Vale sexual health lead, Debbie Harvey. “It demonstrates how effectively a whole host of organisations have been working as a county with teenagers to raise awareness of safe sex and the risks of pregnancy.”
By international standards, the UK has had high rates of teenage pregnancy for forty years. UK rates are twice as high as Germany, three times as high as France and five times higher than the Netherlands. The government is half-way through a 10-year strategy to halve the under-18 conception rate by 2010.
In Gloucestershire, a number of organisations have worked closely with the health community to achieve the fall in teenage pregnancies. Social Services, Housing and Education, Connexions, the Neighbourhood Projects, the county Youth Service and local pharmacies have all been closely involved.
One initiative has been to make free emergency contraception for young people more easily accessible through specially trained pharmacists and nurses. Part of their training is to talk about future sexual activity, contraception and sexually transmitted infections.
The county has recently introduced a badging scheme for health related services to show that they are young people-friendly. GP practices, pharmacies and other services must meet criteria on confidentiality, staff training, young people's literature and evaluation of their service to be badged.
The first three badged services are the Healthwise clinics for young people in the Forest of Dean.
And a GP practice in Dursley has introduced a new text messaging service, particularly targeted at younger people. Patients with questions about contraception and sexual health can text a number at the May Lane Surgery and will receive free advice by return text in complete confidence.
