The Department of Health and Social Care has announced that provisions allowing women to access at-home early medical abortions are set to be made permanent from 30th August 2022.
Under new amendments to the Abortion Act, women will be able to access pills for early medical abortion via a teleconsultation, and for pills to be taken at home for gestation of up to 9 weeks and 6 days.
This comes as all independent sector abortion clinics in England have been reapproved, ensuring abortion services continue to be available to women across the country. All current approvals are valid until 31st July 2026.
Maggie Throup, Minister for Public Health, said:
“The wellbeing and safety of women requiring access to abortion services is paramount.
With these measures, women will have more choice in how and where they access abortion services, while ensuring robust data is collected to ensure their continued safety.”
Alongside this, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health will publish safeguarding guidance for under-18s accessing early medical abortion services in order to “ensure the continued safety of children and young people”.
The guidance will reinforce the principles that every young person should have access to early medical abortions in a timely manner, and that their holistic and safeguarding needs must be addressed by providers.
To effectively monitor the impact and use of at home early medical abortions, doctors will be required to include information on place of termination, place of consultation as well as whether the consultation was fully remote on abortion notification forms. This data will allow for analysis of trends in abortion provision as well as monitoring pathways for home-use abortions.
Doctors will also be required to certify in “good faith” that the gestation period is below 10 weeks for abortion pills prescribed from home and if one or both pills are taken at a woman’s home.
The amendments to the notification forms and certification requirement are set out in the Abortion (Amendment) Regulations 2022. These changes follow a free vote by MPs in March 2022.
The Department of Health and Social Care will set also out expectations around implementation of RCPCH safeguarding guidance, including timeframes, in due course.
