CONTRACEPTION AND SEXUAL HEALTH SERVICES IN SHEFFIELD NOW EVEN MORE CONVENIENT TO ACCESS

People in Sheffield can now access a wider range of contraception and sexual health support in their local area, thanks to Sexual Health Sheffield’s new service.

Sexual Health Sheffield is provided by Primary Care Sheffield and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Changes to the service from this month see services available through local GP practices and community clinics including long-acting forms of contraception such as coils and implants.

Through the service, people can speak confidentially to a clinical pharmacist who can then issue a prescription for emergency contraception to their chosen pharmacy.

Free condoms and STI self-testing kits can be ordered online or collected from the service’s community clinics based within six existing GP practices: Sloan Medical Centre, The Crookes Practice, The Flowers Health Centre, The White House Surgery, The University Health Service and Woodhouse Health Centre.  The Genito-Urinary Medicine clinic at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital will still provide specialist and youth clinics and see patients with more complex contraception needs as well as STI treatment.

Dr Nadeem Petkar, Clinical Director for Primary Care at Scale at Primary Care Sheffield, said: “It’s vital that people are able to get advice and help conveniently and our community clinics complement the service available from GP practices.”

Professor Steve Green, Clinical Director for Communicable Diseases at Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We all want to make accessing contraception as easy and convenient as possible for patients, and it is very clear that bringing services closer to their home is one of the ways we can achieve this. Our GUM (Genito-Urinary Medicine) clinic at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital will continue to provide specialist and youth clinics, and will still see patients with more complex contraception needs. However, the new partnership with Primary Care Sheffield means people no longer have to travel to up to the hospital for routine contraception, treatment and screening, and instead Primary Care Sheffield will now be making these services available in the community.”

Jackie Drayton, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Families Health and Social Care at Sheffield City Council said:  “We have recently commissioned a new way to deliver sexual health services across the city.  I want to assure everyone across our City that no services are being cut, in fact the level of funding has increased so that we can further improve access to sexual health services including sexual health and contraception.”

“In addition to the specialist services which continue to be available at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, there will be six new community clinics providing sexual health and contraception services closer to where people live with extended evening and weekend opening times as well as a new service where people can get emergency contraception.”

For further information on the full range of support, advice and services available, please visit www.sexualhealthsheffield.nhs.uk  or call 0114 226 8888