Sexual health 'too low priority'

Sexual health remains a 'soft' service vulnerable to cuts, the Commons health select committee was warned last week.

The committee also heard that targets to cut unwanted pregnancy may not be met.

The second evidence session for the committee's inquiry into the government's sexual health strategy, published earlier this year, was told that it placed too low a priority on family planning.

Family Planning Association chief executive Anne Weyman said: 'Contraceptive services are often the soft option for cutting services. If you do not have clinics, it reduces the opportunities to train new people.' The committee also heard service provision was patchy, and that many areas would have difficulty providing specialist clinical teams - so-called level three - because of staff shortages.

Family planning was not seen as a good career option for doctors, and the closure of family planning clinics meant many GPs were not adequately trained in contraceptive methods, the committee heard.

Family planning specialist Dr Sarah Randall, from St Mary's Hospital, Plymouth, said: 'There will be some areas that will find it difficult to provide level three, because they haven't got the consultants or the staff. Family planning, or contraception, is not seen as a specialty, but genito-urinary medicine is. We are very short of consultants and have no easy way of achieving the numbers we need.'

Hull and East Riding Community trust community gynaecologist Dr Kate Guthrie said: 'Right now, there is a very small number of specialists coming through. Sexual health desperately needs nurses to go into this role. It is ridiculous having doctors doing things nurses can do.'

The committee was told that because the government's strategy did not have the status of a national service framework, services remained vulnerable to being cut when primary care trusts had to balance their budgets.

Dr Guthrie said the lack of status meant PCTs were not under orders to spend on sexual health.