§ Mr. WrayTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will take urgent steps to ensure that all health authorities establish family planning services for under-25s less formal and easier to obtain than those for mature people.
§ Mrs. Virginia BottomleyThe day-to-day management of family planning services is a matter for individual health authorities since they can best judge local circumstances and priorities. The Government continue to regard family planning as an important preventive service. Guidance issued by the Department of Health makes it clear that health authorities should ensure that full use is made of family planning services and that a proper balance is struck between services provided by specialist clinics and those provided by GPs, bearing in mind in particular:
- i. the need to give choice to encourage full take-up;
- ii. the need for separate, less formal arrangements for young people;
- iii. clinics' wider health role—for instance, in cervical cancer smear testing.
This guidance was recently reaffirmed in a letter EL(90)M B115, a copy of which is available in the Library, to regional general managers by the director of operations and planning on the national health service management executive.
277WA number of health authorities provide services for young people through Brook advisory centres which receive central funding towards their headquarters administrative costs.
§ Mr. WrayTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make it his policy to ensure that arrangements about family planning services by district health authorities are made after adequate previous consultations with residents in those districts.
§ Mrs. Virginia BottomleyThe level of local family planning provision, as with most national health service services, is a matter for individual health authorities to determine in the light of local needs and priorities and other competing demands on resources. The director of operations and planning on the NHS management executive recently reminded regional general managers, by EL(90)MB115, a copy of which is available in the Library, of current central guidance on family planning provision. That letter asked English health authorities, in making provision for delivery of co-ordinated clinic and GP family planning services, to ensure that they have given full weight to the advice of their director of public health in regard to the needs and views of people who already use or may want to use NHS family planning services.
§ Mr. WrayTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what arrangements are being made for the voluntary sector to bid for service provider contracts in the area of family planning.
§ Mrs. Virginia BottomleyIt is for district health authorities (DHAs) to decide upon the pattern of services their residents need and to arrange contracts for the delivery from the most appropriate provider, which might be one of the authorities' own units, a unit managed by another district health authority, a national health service trust, or a voluntary body.