§ The Marquess of LOTHIANasked Her Majesty's Government:
How many Family Planning Association clinics and personnel are to be absorbed by local health authorities into the new Family Planning Service; when this process will be completed; and whether the Family Planning Association practice of indiscriminately supplying non-medical contraceptives 1219WA to school children under 16 will also become part of local health authorities' expenditure.
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLThe precise figures of the numbers of clinics and personnel to be absorbed by health authorities arc not available, but at 1st April 1974 there were in Great Britain 951 clinics in which there were 3,869 doctors and nurses together with a number of clerical staff employed by the Family Planning Association. Nearly all of these staff will have been employed only part-time in family planning work. We expect that similar numbers will have been absorbed into the National Health Service when the process of transfer has been completed on 30th September 1976. In addition there were large numbers of voluntary workers providing support services some of whom continue to work in the health authority clinics.
The Family Planning Service Memorandum of Guidance which was issued to health authorities in spring 1974 contained advice to staff to help them in the very difficult decisions they have to make when children under 16 seek advice from them on contraception. I am sending a copy of this advice, a copy of which is in the Library of the House, to the noble Maquess.