\n<\/p>\n
The NHS has made the morning-after pill available for free across pharmacies in England in an effort to reduce a \u201cpostcode lottery\u201d of access to emergency contraception.<\/p>\n
Almost 10,000 pharmacies are now able to offer the pill without charge, saving those in need of free emergency contraception from having to visit their GP or to get an appointment at a sexual health clinic.<\/p>\n
Some pharmacies were previously charging as much as \u00a330 for emergency oral contraception.<\/p>\n
The NHS\u2019s national clinical director for women\u2019s health, <\/em>Dr Sue Mann, said the expansion was \u201cone of the biggest changes to sexual health services since the 1960s\u201d and \u201ca gamechanger in making reproductive healthcare more easily accessible for women\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of trying to search for women\u2019s services or explain their needs, from today women can just pop into their local pharmacy and get the oral emergency contraceptive pill free of charge without needing to make an appointment,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWith four in five people living within a 20-minute walk from a pharmacy, this service is another example of how the NHS is already delivering on our 10-year health plan commitment to shift care into the heart of communities\u201d.<\/p>\n The coincides with the NHS announcing that people who have been newly prescribed antidepressants will also now be able to seek advice and support about their medication and healthy lifestyle changes from their local pharmacist.<\/p>\n Henry Gregg, the chief executive of the National Pharmacy Association, which represents about 6,000 independent pharmacies across the UK, said: \u201cWe\u2019ve long called for the national commissioning of emergency contraception so this is good news for patients and pharmacies alike that this is launching today.<\/p>\n \u201cFor too long, access to free emergency contraception has been a postcode lottery for patients, with local arrangements only existing in certain parts of the country.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really important that pharmacies, who are under significant pressure and closing in record numbers, are sustainably funded so they can continue to provide services to patients such as these.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The minister for care, Stephen Kinnock, said: \u201cThis is a major step forward that removes barriers of access to reproductive care that have let women down for too long.<\/p>\n \u201cPharmacies play a central role in communities, trusted by local people and easy to access. That\u2019s why it\u2019s vital there are a wide range of services and medications available.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The NHS has made the morning-after pill available for free across pharmacies in England in an effort to reduce a \u201cpostcode lottery\u201d of access to emergency contraception. Almost 10,000 pharmacies are now able to offer the pill without charge, saving those in need of free emergency contraception from having to visit their GP or to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[13799,311,2906,533,18195,1229,18196,934,3330],"class_list":{"0":"post-31196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-contraception","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-family","11":"tag-free","12":"tag-morningafter","13":"tag-nhs","14":"tag-pharmacies","15":"tag-pill","16":"tag-planning"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}