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<p>We are proud of the United Kingdom’s progress regarding sexual and reproductive
health and rights (SRHR) in the last thirty years and of our country’s leadership
as the top performing country in SRHR policies according to the European Combined
SRHR Ranking Atlas 2020-2023.</p><p>In Great Britain, women have access to safe, regulated
National Health Service-funded termination of pregnancy services under the Abortion
Act 1967. Abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland through the introduction
of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc.) Act 2019. Health is devolved in
the UK, and progress on SRHR in England has included several areas of SRHR.</p><p>Contraception
plays a vital role in preventing unintended pregnancy and a wide range of contraceptive
choices are available free of charge in a range of primary and community care venues
in England, including through the NHS Pharmacy Contraception Service since April 2023.
The conception rate amongst women under 18 years old in England is now lower than
it was twenty years ago and has more than halved between 2011 and 2021. The conception
rate for those aged under 16 years old is approximately a third of what it was 10
years ago.</p><p>The 2022 Women’s Health Strategy for England sets out our plans for
boosting the health and wellbeing of women and girls, and for improving how the health
and care system engages and listens to all women. This includes investing £25 million
in women’s health hubs to improve women’s access to essential services for menstrual
problems, contraception, menopause care and more.</p><p>Local authorities in England
are responsible for commissioning comprehensive open access to most sexual health
services (SHSs) through the public health grant funded at £3.5 billion in 2023/24. Individual
local authorities are well placed to make funding and commissioning decisions about
the SHSs that best meet the needs of their local populations. This includes oral HIV
pre-exposure prophylaxis, which has been routinely available in specialist SHSs since
2020.</p><p>The National Chlamydia Screening Programme focuses on reducing reproductive
harm of untreated infection in young women aged 15 to 24 years old. The programme
has the secondary aims of reducing re-infections and onward transmission of chlamydia
and raising awareness of good sexual health.</p><p>Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a
very common sexually transmitted infection, and some types can cause genital warts
or cervical cancer. The national HPV vaccination programme was introduced for girls
in September 2008 and extended to eligible boys in September 2019. In 2022, genital
warts diagnoses among young women aged between 15 and 17 years old attending SHSs
were 67.9% lower than in 2018.</p><p>The HIV Action Plan is the cornerstone of our
approach in England to drive forward progress and achieve our goal to end new HIV
transmissions, AIDS and HIV-related deaths within England by 2030 backed by almost
£45m over 2020-2025. We continue to celebrate the progress made from 2019 when the
Government first made its HIV commitments, with approximately 4,500 people living
with undiagnosed HIV and extremely high levels of antiretroviral therapy coverage
and viral suppression.</p>
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