Sexual and Reproductive Health Services, England (Contraception) 2019/20

This part provides a summary of activity recorded in the SRHAD collection. As the primary focus of the collection is contraception, it may not capture all non-contraception related activity taking place at SRH services. Overall contacts may be effected by changes in recording practices for non-contraception related activity over time, though efforts have been made with data providers in recent years to ensure completeness and consistency. Contacts for reasons of contraception should be less affected by these issues.

People may contact SRH services for a number of reasons, including but not exclusively:

• Provision of a main or supporting method of contraception, or contraception advice.
• Provision of emergency contraception.
• Removal of contraception devices.
• Sexual health advice and STI care.
• Pregnancy or abortion related issues.

For non-contraceptive activity taking place at SRH services, SRHAD only includes summary data. More detailed data on services relating to Genitourinary Medicine, is collated by Public Health England:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/sexually-transmitted-infections-stis-annual-data-tables

A contact is defined as a contact with the service, including external contacts, i.e. where an individual patient receives care outside the clinic setting, for example in his or her own home. Non-face to face contacts were added to the scope in version 2 of SRHAD from 2015/16.

Contacts by year

In 2019/20, there were 1.90 million contacts with dedicated SRH services made by 1.20 million individuals. Though this is small decrease compared to the number of contacts in 2018/19 (1.93 million), around 60,000 records are known to be  missing from one provider (see the Relevance section of the Data Quality Statement).

The number of contacts per year has fallen 26% since 2009/10 (2.57 million).  Changes over time may be affected by variation in the way services record the non-contraception related activity included in this measure. 

In 2019/20 there were 1.26 million contacts for reasons of contraception, down 10% compared to 2018/19 (1.40 million), and down 33% compared to 2014/15 (1.87 million). This data is not available prior to 2014/15 due to differences in how the data was collected.

Note that figures since 2015/16 have included non-face to face contacts (0.6% to 3.0% of total contacts).

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For more information: Table 1, Sexual and Reproductive Health Services (Contraception), England - 2019-20

A single contact with SRH services may involve more than one reason.   

Reason for contact by females

82% of all contacts with SRH services were by females (1.55 million contacts).

12% of female contacts involved the provision of a new main method of contraception, 17% a change of main method and 41% the maintenance of an existing main method. This is a total of 70% of contacts where a main method was supplied or maintained.

8% involved pre-contraception advice, and 5% emergency contraception.

76% involved one or more other types of activity (whether with or without a contraception related service). See table 5 in the Excel data tables for a full breakdown of this activity. 

Reason for contact by males

18% of all contacts with SRH services were by males (348 thousand contacts).

12% of male contacts involved the supply/maintenance of a main method, and 2% pre-contraception advice.

97% involved other activities (whether with or without a contraception-related service).

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For more information: Tables 4 and 5, Sexual and Reproductive Health Services (Contraception), England - 2019-20

This section only includes people who used a service for reasons of contraception, including for emergency contraception and contraception related advice. 

Likelihood of contact by age and gender

5% of females between the ages of 13 and 54 had at least one contact with an SRH service for reasons of contraception. For males in the same age group, it was less than 0.5% of the resident population.

The likelihood of a female contacting a service varies between ages.

Females aged 18 to 19 and aged 20 to 24 were most likely to use a service for contraception, with 13% and 12%, respectively, having at least one contact.

4% of females aged 15 and 1% of females aged 13 to 14 had at least one contact. These equates to 2% of females aged 13 to 15.

Likelihood of contacts by females (aged 13 to 54), by Local Authority (LA) of residence

The likelihood of a female using an SRH service for reasons of contraception will be influenced by the availability of such services in their area of residence.

The proportion of the female population (aged 13 to 54) that used a service for reasons of contraception, was highest in Liverpool (17%), Sefton (15%), St. Helens (14%), and Knowsley (14%).

Across LAs, up to 44% of 18-19 year olds used a service for reasons of contraception (Blackpool), and up to 39% of 20-24 year olds (Sefton), though there was a large amount of variation.

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For more information: Tables 2 and 16, Sexual and Reproductive Health Services (Contraception), England - 2019-20