The number of unplanned pregnancies is likely to rise and cost the NHS an extra £250m on abortions and maternity services because of proposed cuts to public health spending, leading sexual health experts have warned.
The Advisory Group on Contraception said on Friday that the government’s £200m in planned savings were a false economy as cutbacks in sexual health advice and provision would have a direct impact on unwanted pregnancies.
Leading doctors’ groups had urged the chancellor, George Osborne, to pull back from his planned 6% cuts to local authority public health grants from the summer budget, but the Treasury is pushing ahead.
The AGC – which includes doctors as well as representatives of the Family Planning Association, Marie Stopes International, the Sexual Health Forum and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service – warned that contraception services would inevitably be hit given that they amounted to 10% of council spending on public health.
It forecast that if budgets were sliced to affect all services equally, it would cost the NHS at least £250m extra this year alone, as well as having a significant impact on the lives of many women. The AGC’s meetings are funded by Bayer, a manufacturer of contraceptives, but its members are unpaid and independent.
The group’s position was backed by Labour’s Luciana Berger, the shadow minister for public health, who said there was a “real risk that this decision could cost more money than it saves”.
“These figures from the Advisory Group on Contraception show that restrictions to sexual health services alone could cost the NHS £250m this year. This warning along with those from the BMA, the LGA, and other expert groups speak for themselves,” she said.
“My calls for the government to publish the details of its plans so they can be properly scrutinised have been ignored. There is no sign of the consultation on how these savings will be implemented. The longer these details are delayed, the more the promise that this decision won’t affect frontline services becomes difficult to believe.”
Ministers were tackled in a Lords debate on Thursday about where the cuts to public health spending would fall by Liberal Democrat peer Joan Walmsley, who warned they could adversely affect teenage pregnancy programmes for the young, domestic violence programmes for women, HIV prevention programmes and tuberculosis prevention programmes for the poor and homeless.
Health minister David Prior said councils would have discretion about where to save money. “The reduction of £200m in the grant to local authorities should be seen in the context of a total grant of £3.2bn; it is a 6% reduction,” he said.
