Demand for emergency hormonal contraception from pharmacies is widespread and growing, a meeting of the Parliamentary All-Party Pharmacy Group has heard.
The pharmacist managing a group protocol project in Manchester (Mrs Karen O'Brien) told the group on May 16 that since the scheme began on Christmas Eve last year (PJ, January 8, p44) there had been 1,424 requests for EHC from women aged from 14 to 56 years. Over a third of them, 597 requests, had been made in the past month alone. Only 113 requests had fallen outside the terms of the group protocol under which pharmacists were authorised to supply the product. Clients had travelled to Manchester from as far away as Cambridge and one woman who was willing to travel to the city immediately by taxi had telephoned from Southampton. The scheme should be rolled out nationally as soon as possible.
"We feel ours is the way forward. We have a good multidisciplinary scheme offering a gold-standard treatment," Mrs O'Brien said.
Miss Beth Taylor (Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham health authority) said that a similar project in her health authority was experiencing few problems, other than the demand for the service.
"In the first month demand has been four to five times our initial estimate. Callers to NHS Direct have been referred to us from all over London," she said.
Dr Connie Smith (Faculty of Family Planning, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists) said: "This should give us pause for thought. We are being told that women need access to this product."
She added: "We are confident of its safety and we have found that a substantial proportion of people attending termination clinics did not know about EHC or, if they did, did not know where to get it."
Commenting on the possible reclassification of EHC as a pharmacy medicine, the newly elected member of Parliament for Romsey (Mrs Sandra Gidley, MRPharmS) said that she was concerned that reclassification would mean the introduction of a price barrier for women needing EHC. She was also concerned that pharmacists selling the product would not have received the same level of training as those supplying it under group protocols.