Sexual health clinics offer contraception. That's why they aren't called GUM clinics these days. GU medicine and contraception services have been amalgamated into integrated sexual health services.
I get what you’re saying and personally have for a long time preferred to go to sexual health clinics for gynae matters...
BUT there are 2 factors you haven’t accounted for
1 there’s still a HUGE stigma to going to/being seen at “the clap clinic” in most areas the location is known to locals and difficult to access via public transport and ime often in an obviously different location to other primary care services or even where I am currently the nearest hospital. It’s not even in the same part of town as the hospital! So if you bump into someone you know it’s outing and embarrassing for many
2 they’ve been hit VERY hard by the cuts possibly more than other areas of medicine I’d say. Our local one when I first moved here was open 5 days a week 8-6, it’s now only open 2 days a week 10-3 and you can’t just walk in any more, you have to make an appointment and it can take quite some time to get one and certain times are allocated to certain clinics which may well not be convenient for many patients.
Now yes “inconvenience” is one thing but I’m also thinking of all those shy teens and domestic abuse victims who may need to access the services outside the times designated for whatever reason they’re attending and are now no longer able to.
Also where I am is very much mostly rural residents and the sexual health clinic while relatively close for me personally covers I believe residents as much as 25 miles away (as the crow flies) and some of those residents have to get a ferry to the mainland first it’s quite a trek! Not something they can necessarily undertake discreetly
Postal services to the islands are quite hit and miss too and for vulnerable patients might not be a safe method of accessing contraception in terms of their home life
Another issue where I live (and before anyone says yes I know it SHOULDN’T be) is LACK of confidentiality. It’s a VERY small town and everyone DOES Know everyone! Not so much an issue with the gps but there have certainly been issues with certain practice nurses and admin staff! Yes it’s been dealt with afterwards, but by that point the damage was done!
I had the experience of a member of admin staff from my sisters surgery (we don’t even share a surgery) revealing my sisters last pregnancy to me in the bloody supermarket before she’d even had her first appointment relating to the pregnancy! It was unplanned and for all that staff member knew my sister wasn’t planning on continuing the pregnancy. I’ve also had someone from my and dds surgery call and tell me her pill prescription was ready to collect, now dd and I have an open and close relationship so I knew she was sexually active and on the pill BUT the person calling didn’t know that!
Made complaints on both occasions but both incidents if damage had been caused by those breaches of confidentiality it’s too late to undo that damage by that point.
@standrewsachool but by finding primary care in such a way bias and conflict of interests comes into play.
If gps come out better financially by “encouraging” patients to accept a specific type or brand of treatment then it affects their decisions on what to recommend to patients
The nhs is SUPPOSED to be protected from the influences of commercial pharmaceuticals and medical manufacturers yet practices like this make a nonsense of that.
What is recommended to a patient should be primarily based on CLINICAL best practice NOT on govt backed promotion of certain treatments/products
Given how hard the sell is on mirena in particular is happening I feel confident that someone somewhere has had a backhander!
Because it's not just hormonal iud's being pushed but a particular brand! There are other types and brands of hormonal and non hormonal iuds plus other LARC which doesn't get anything like the constant hard pushing mirena does!
You'd think they'd learn from the mesh debacle apparently not!