Kurt Girls throughout England will be capable of get the morning-after capsule without spending a dime from pharmacies from later this 12 months, the federal government has mentioned.
Emergency contraception is already freed from cost from most GPs and sexual well being clinics.
However ministers say getting it in pharmacies is a “postcode lottery” – with some councils funding free prescriptions, whereas elsewhere ladies will pay as much as £30.
It’s hoped the transfer will release GP appointments and cut back the inequalities confronted by ladies attempting to entry the medicine in deprived communities.
Emergency contraception is medicine designed to forestall undesirable pregnancies. It normally must be taken inside 3 to five days of getting unprotected intercourse however the sooner it’s taken, the more practical it’s.
Making the morning-after capsule out there via the NHS at pharmacies will finish the “unfair” limitations some ladies face when needing to entry it, in response to the federal government.
Well being minister Stephen Kinnock mentioned equal entry “to protected and efficient contraception is essential to ladies’s healthcare and a cornerstone of a good society”.
“Girls throughout England face an unfair postcode lottery when searching for emergency contraception, with entry various dramatically relying on the place they reside,” he mentioned.
Kinnock mentioned the plan “will guarantee all ladies can entry this important healthcare after they want it, no matter the place they reside or their skill to pay”.
The initiative will likely be introduced on Monday as a part of a wider bundle of funding to rebuild the group pharmacies sector.
The Nationwide Pharmacy Affiliation welcomed the transfer, including it represented “excellent news for sufferers and pharmacies alike”.
But it surely added it was vital the NHS “absolutely reimburses” pharmacies for time taken to conduct consultations required earlier than drugs will be allotted.
Free emergency contraception is about to be out there from pharmacies in England later this 12 months.
