PCT defends contraceptive pill decision

The Isle of Wight PCT created the initiative which aims to reduce teenage pregnancies by giving young women counselling on contraception and sexual health as well as a month’s supply of the pill.

The scheme has been criticised by local church and community groups.

The Reverend Anthony Glaysher, parish priest at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Ryde, told the BBC that the scheme “fundamentally attacked the family”.

Andrew Turner, Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight, said: “How can adults bring up their children if their children can go into a shop, more or less, and be handed over something which is so significant?

“I will be making my concern clear to the people who run the health service and they’ve got to understand that many people feel the same.”

Dr Jenifer Smith, director of public health at Isle of Wight, said the scheme would mean that a teenage girl seeking emergency contraception would be given a private consultation.

During this consultation, the pharmacist would discuss the side effects and possible complications of contraception, provide advice on sexually transmitted infections, make a referral to the island’s sexual heath service and provide a month’s supply of the pill.

She said: “It is not for the health service to moralise on the rights and wrongs of under-age sex but earlier this year we identified a gap in the local arrangements.”

Gary Warner, a community pharmacist on the Isle of Wight, said: “The service has been carefully thought through with excellent communications and a ‘whole system’ approach taken involving GPs, sexual health services, youth services and the island’s pharmacists.

“We are confident that it will help protect the young women from unwanted pregnancy but also from sexually transmitted infections by ensuring that they have the confidence and the access to our condom distribution scheme which is offered free of charge through the pharmacies on the island.”