A SURVEY OF A HOSPITAL-BASED OUT-OF-HOURS EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION SERVICE

With an increasing awareness of emergency contraception there will be a greater demand. Therefore there is a need to provide a comprehensive emergency contraception service. Most women require emergency contrac eption over a weekend and public holiday. However, many accident and e mergency (A&E) departments do not provide emergency contraception, and family planning clinics (FPCs) and general practitioners (GPs) surger ies are closed We therefore developed a 24 hour service based in the g ynaecology department of Northwick Park Hospital to cover this period. This is a survey of the first sir months. Forty one women were seen o ver 26 weekends and one public holiday, confirming the demand. This de mand may increase as more women become aware of the service. With an a verage of two women seen per weekend, a hospital based service provide d by the on-call gynaecology senior house officer (SHO), with other co mmittments over the weekend appears to be the most suitable and cost e ffective option, Information was also obtained on the age of the women presenting, their method of contraception, time from unprotected sexu al intercourse (UPSI), risk of pregnancy, type of emergency contracept ion used and preferred method of future contraception.