Who should get ellaOne? This a difficult question to answer as the superior efficacy is equivocal and it would be inappropriate to give it to all women presenting for emergency contraception. Some have tried to identify those who might be at greater risk of pregnancy to target UPA, for example younger women or those who have had intercourse during the more risky days in the cycle.

I heard recently that prescriptions for many contraceptive had fallen so I have looked at the Prescription Cost Analysis from DoH for data on GP prescribing. Data are available for England from 1998 to 2010.

Most prescribing of contraceptive is done in general practice, although this applies more to the OCs and DMPA than to the other LARC methods, which require specialist training for insertion.

LARCs

Diploma of the Faculty of Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare

In January 2010 the Faculty of Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare launched their new Diploma course. The course comprises of three stages:

1. e-SRH - an e-learning course
2. Course of 5 - a course of five seminars
3. Clinical experience - clinical sessions at the Contraception & Sexual Health Clinic

We are pleased to welcome all the GPs who joined the Chlamydia Screening Programme over the past year. This began with GPs in Kensington & Chelsea last autumn, followed by GPs in Westminster, then Hammersmith & Fulham GPs earlier this year.

General Practice has an important part to play in the delivery of the Screening Programme. Between 60% and 83% of young people visit their GPs every year and this is an ideal opportunity to offer Chlamydia screening.

Indeed, the majority of Programmes which achieved their target last year obtained over half of those screens from core services: general practice, community pharmacists and contraceptive services. This year we will be focussing on General Practice by offering support and regular training to help practices take every opportunity to offer screening to their patients.