Sexual and Reproductive Health Services, England (Contraception), 2023-24

This part includes data on sterilisations and vasectomies taking place at SRH services and in NHS hospitals. NHS hospitals data is extracted from NHS England's Hospital Episode Statistics (HES). See part C of the Appendices for a full list of sterilisation and vasectomy HES procedure codes. 

A female sterilisation is an operation that necessitates a stay in hospital, and so all data relates to NHS hospitals.

Vasectomies may be performed as operations requiring a hospital stay, or as procedures in outpatient departments and SRH services clinics. Most are performed as day cases in hospital outpatient departments.

Sterilisation procedures by year (NHS Hospitals)

There were 10,588 sterilisations performed in NHS hospitals in 2023-24, a decrease of 1% on 2022-23 (10,727). The long-term trend is downwards, with the 2023-24 total 29% lower than ten years ago in 2013-14 (14,883).

Vasectomy procedures by year (SRH services and NHS Hospitals)

22,775 vasectomies were performed in 2023-24. Though this was 113% higher than in 2022-23 (10,710), a single SRH services provider (with clinics nationwide) who had not previously submitted data to the SRHAD collection was responsible for around 9,000 (40%) of the procedures in 2023-24 (see the Data Quality Statement for more information).

Note that the data without the contribution of the additional provider is also shown on the chart below to assist with trend monitoring. When excluding the data from this provider, the 2023-24 total is around the level seen before services were affected by the Covid pandemic (2020-21 to 2021-22).

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For more information: Data tables 1 and 12