GPs to get extra ‘points’ for encouraging LARCS

New sexual health indicators will promote use of ‘fit and forget’ methods of long-acting reversible contraception. 

GPC negotiators and NHS Employers have moved to align the sexual health indicators in the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) with NICE guidance on the provision of long-acting reversible contraception (LARCs) to women of child-bearing age, reports the GPs’ magazine Pulse.

Three new indicators will offer GPs a total of 10 points: four points for having a register of women on contraception; three points for offering information about LARCs to women on other forms of contraception; and three points for providing LARCs information within a month to women prescribed emergency contraception.

NICE recommended in 2005 that all women requiring contraception should be offered a choice of all methods of contraception, including LARCs. Experts believe that in addition to being more cost-effective than other forms of contraception, the widespread use of LARCs would reduce the UK’s rate of teenage and unintended pregnancies.

But the uptake and implementation of the guidance since 2005 has been poor, which GPs blamed on the scarcity of places on Faculty of Family Planning training courses.

LARC use aligned with NICE. Pulse, 22 October 08