Boots has reduced the price of the morning-after pill in all its UK stores after failing to meet its target of a full rollout of the discount by October 2017. The move, which has been hailed as a “great win for women”, follows a campaign from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), a leading provider of abortion care.
The charity wrote to retailers in spring 2017 asking them to consider offering a more affordable product after it was revealed that British women were paying up to five times as much as their European peers for the contraceptive.
Tesco and Superdrug agreed, but Boots sparked controversy when it said it would not lower the price of its generic brand of emergency hormonal contraception (EHC), levonorgestrel, as it did not want to be accused of “incentivising inappropriate use”. Campaigners said the statement was insulting and sexist and Boots eventually relented, saying the price would drop from £26.75 to £15.99 from October.
However, the chemist faced further criticism when it emerged the discount was only available in just 38 of its 2,400 branches nationwide. Boots said the delay was due to low stock as a result of “batch failure”.
On Monday, a spokeswoman for the pharmacy chain said: “We’d like to thank our customers for their patience. It was always our intention to ensure that when we launched this service it was done well, and with sufficient, sustainable supply so that women would be able to access it both now and in the future.”
A BPAS spokesperson said: “We are delighted that Boots has finally followed many other retailers and is now selling emergency contraception for £15.99, almost a year after we first wrote to them asking for a reduction in the inflated prices. This is good news for women.”
They added they would be continuing their campaign as “even at these significantly lower prices, emergency contraception remains more expensive in the UK than many other European countries, and is still twice the price of what women in France are charged”.
Sharon Hodgson MP welcomed Boots fulfilling its commitment and agreed more could be done to increase access.
She said: “The next step is to ensure this important service is available to every woman at her local pharmacy free on the NHS by eradicating the postcode lottery that exists at present and look at ways to remove the cost barrier all together.”
