Nottingham University's sexual health services for students have topped a league table of 24 elite universities in the UK.

Researchers from Dr Ed, an online medical service, have compiled the first sexual health report card of services at the 24 prestigious Russell Group universities.

The universities' sexual health facilities were ranked by many criteria – including opening hours, whether or not they operated drop in sessions, access to contraception, and the quality of the information available on site and online.

Nottingham University topped the league table, while "firsts" were also awarded to King's College London and Bristol University, but Cardiff University was placed at the foot of the table, graded F for many of its services.

Amit Khutti, co-founder of Dr Ed, said the survey was inspired by a similar project in the United States. The US survey, sponsored by Trojan, a condom manufacturer, has helped drive improvements to services, said Khutti, and it is hoped the UK report card will have a similar effect.

"We started off with the Russell Group universities," he said, "but we hope in time to extend this. We would like to use this as a benchmark and see services improve over time.

"We would like to repeat this so people can benchmark their services against other organisations, and against their own performance over time."

Dr Ed says most universities were good at offering access to condoms and other non-prescription contraceptives, and many had good access to chlamydia testing.

But the promotion of sexual health issues on campus was often weak, and student welfare officers who helped with the research reported that leaflets and posters promoting sexual health issues were often poor or not available at all.

As well as getting information from student welfare officers, Dr Ed used "mystery shoppers" to test services. They found a "postcode lottery" for access to services at some universities, with students told that they would have to visit the local genito-urinary medicine clinic if they lived outside the area covered by campus facilities.

Dr Ed said it would like to see standardised sexual health services for all students around the country.

The National Union of Students' vice president, Pete Mercer said the report card may encourage universities to improve the services on offer to students and to address areas where there is room for improvement.

He added: "Although it probably won't be a driving factor when choosing university, this is just the sort of information that should be at students' fingertips.

"The level of consistency in sexual health services is already a concern, particularly given recent sweeping changes in local health provision, and this gives all the more impetus to developing partnership and campaigning work to prevent a postcode lottery in the provision of what are vitally important services to the student community.

"If nothing else, hopefully the Dr Ed report card will increase awareness of student sexual health issues and encourage universities to both take them more seriously and to learn from the best examples already in existence."