Online ECP service makes headlines

A major High Street chemist in the UK has launched a service to sell the morning-after pill over the internet. 

The Lloyds Pharmacy service will allow women to order up to three pills, which will be delivered 72 hours after they place the order. Women will be able to purchase up to three pills at a time, at prices ranging from £27.99 to £74.97, reports the BBC.

Women wanting to use the service will have to complete a detailed questionnaire, which will then be checked by a doctor. The pill, which is reportedly 95% effective if taken within 24 hours of having sex, will only be sent to the address of the credit card holder ordering.

Steve Marinker, spokesperson for Lloyds Pharmacy, explained how the service was designed to be used.

‘A lot of women have told us that they would find it very useful to have an advanced supply of the morning-after pill,’ he said. ‘For example, when they’re going abroad somewhere where they don’t speak the language and they’re worried that if they find themselves in a situation where they might need the morning-after pill - for example, a condom splits - that they won’t necessarily be able to get one very easily. Maybe something’s gone wrong with their normal contraception and it’s a Saturday night, and they might be anxious about how long it will take them to get a morning-after pill, and that they might have to wait until Monday morning.’

Steve Marinker explained that the service’s safeguards should cut the chances of people taking advantage of the system - for example, by stockpiling pills either for their own use or to sell on.

‘Price is one [barrier],” he said, ‘and so too is the fact that each and every time you try to buy these products on our service a GP reviews your application. Through the confidential online patient record, he or she would know when you last tried to buy this product, so if there was anything irregular or worrying, the GP would immediately get in contact and ask you questions before they’d be prepared to write a prescription.’

The Lloyds Pharmacy service is similar to BPAS’ bpas-by-post services, which have been running for over a year. Bpas-by-post offers women the opportunity to buy oral contraception, including advance packs of emergency contraception, and it offers men the opportunity to purchase impotence treatment. Both women and men can also obtain tests and treatment for Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) online.

Ann Furedi, Chief Executive of BPAS, said of advance prescribing:

‘BPAS welcomes women being offered emergency contraception in advance, which has the backing of all the medical organisations in our area. That’s why we have offered this service from our website for nearly two years and believe that it makes absolute sense for women to have emergency contraception at home. Women who are at risk of an unintended pregnancy need emergency contraception to hand as we know it is most effective if taken in the first 12 hours.

‘Having emergency contraception is a responsible precaution. If we go out and buy a fire extinguisher it doesn’t mean we’re more likely to have a house fire.’

Some groups have greeted the news with concern, however, claiming the new system could cause harm to women by possibly making it simpler to get hold of the morning-after pill.

Paul Tully from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) said: ‘We’re very disturbed at this development, this is a trend that a number of those in the family planning industry have been pushing for,’ he said. ‘One’s got to look at good evidence. In terms of the epidemiological evidence - what’s happening throughout the population - the accelerating rate of sexually transmitted diseases and the continuing high level of teenage pregnancies, pregnancies which people say are unplanned, and of abortions. All those practices indicate that the current kind of practices are not working.’

News of the Lloyds Pharmacy service was greeted with some negative news headlines. The Daily Telegraph reported Anger over ‘morning-after pill bulk-buy offer’, and the Daily Mail reported Fury as High Street pharmacy sells morning-after pill online. But a sensible commentary by Sun Agony Aunt Deirdre Sanders was headlined, Pill pack won’t fuel sex disease.

Morning-after pill on sale online. BBC Newsbeat, 23 March 2009