SURVEY OF CONTRACEPTIVE SERVICES AND EXTENT OF STAFF QUALIFICATIONS IN FAMILY-PLANNING IN PRIMARY-CARE IN STAFFORDSHIRE

A telephone survey was undertaken of 140 general practices in Stafford shire to ascertain the type of contraceptive services offered and the numbers of staff with family planning qualifications. Criteria and sta ndards of a quality service were agreed by a panel of doctors and nurs es prior to the study. Questionnaires were completed for 125 of the 14 1 practices surveyed (89 per cent response rate), involving a total of 383 general practitioners. Eleven (nine per cent) practices did not h ave a general practitioner with a specific family planning qualificati on and 53 (42 per cent) did not have a practice nurse with an ENB qual ification in family planning. There were nine practices where the doct or who fitted caps and seven practices where the doctors who fitted co ils did not have recognised family planning qualifications. There were 29 practices where nurses without family planning qualifications chec ked coils and 11 practices where nurses without family planning qualif ications checked caps. Few practices had carried out a patient satisfa ction survey or had undertaken an audit of their contraceptive service s. The majority of practices still performed cervical smears on women aged less than 20 years old. There was a limited choice of contracepti ve methods in the practices surveyed where 38 per cent did not offer c ap fitting and 17 per cent did not offer coil fitting. This quality st udy showed that the agreed standards of staff training and range of co ntraceptive services were not uniformly met by all general practices i n Mid and North Staffordshire. It could form the basis for ongoing aud it.