Publication, Part of Sexual and Reproductive Health Services (Contraception)

Sexual and Reproductive Health Services, England (Contraception) 2021/22

Accredited official statistics

Publication Date:: 29 Sep 2022
Geographic Coverage:: England
Geographical Granularity:: Country, Regions, Local Authorities, Provider, Hospital Trusts, Independent Sector Health Care Providers
Date Range:: 01 Apr 2021 to 31 Mar 2022

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Introduction

Chart correction

In part 3, one chart showing "Emergency contraception items provided to under16s by year, as a percentage of emergency contraception items provided to females of all ages" has been replaced to show the correct figure for 2020/21.

28 September 2023 09:30 AM

Summary

This publication primarily covers contraceptive activity taking place at dedicated Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services in England, as recorded in the Sexual and Reproductive Health Activity Dataset (SRHAD), a mandated collection for all providers of NHS SRH services. Data from GP settings and pharmacies is not included (unless otherwise stated). People attend SRH services for a variety of reasons, but the main focus of this report is contraception.

Highlights

Latest available year of data is 2021/22 unless otherwise stated.

Data is for SRH services only unless otherwise stated.

4% fall in contraception-related contacts with SRH services compared to 2020/21

This is a fall from 1.0 million to 0.96 million contraception-related contacts

Overall contacts (includes those for non-contraception reasons) increased by 3% over the same period

56% uptake of long acting reversible contraceptives

This is an increase of 10 percentage points, from 46% in 2020/21.

(Includes implants, IU devices, IU systems and injectable contraceptives)

27% uptake of the contraceptive pill

This is down from 39% in 2020/21*, but still the most popular type of method for SRH service users

*Note that at the end of July 2021, progesterone only pills became available to purchase over the counter at pharmacies without prescription. This is likely to have impacted the number of women needing to attend SRH services for the contraceptive pill, and thus the SRH services uptake figures for this method.

32% fewer emergency contraceptive items provided by SRH services compared to 2019/20 (pre-Covid pandemic)

Over the last ten years, there has been a steady decline in the number of emergency contraception items provided by both SRH services and at other locations in the community.

Access the code used to create this report

The code used to create the outputs for this report is available on our NHS Digital GitHub webpage.

Click here to access the code