FAMILY PLANNING CLINICS

Abstract

A survey of clinics was undertaken in 1970 by the Institute for Social Studies in Medical Care as part of a study of birth control services in 52 areas of England and Wales. The survey showed that slightly over half the clinics had been running for less than 5 years. In 1970 the greater part of the task of providing this service was still being carried out by voluntary organizations: the Brook Advisory Centres the International Planned Parenthood Federation a few local organizations and most of all the Family Planning Association (FPA). 3/4 of the clinics were being run by the FPA 1/5 by local authorities and the remaining 4% by these other organizations. Parallel to this survey of family planning services in the same 52 areas a survey of women was carried out by Margaret Bone to find out among other things how they used the services and what they thought about them. It was found that omitting those women known to be sterile 30% of the married women did not know of a family planning clinic and 26% thought that a visit to a clinic would be difficult to arrange. 91% of clinics advertised in some way through posters leaflets or less frequently through the local press. Almost all the clinics had a telephone. The telephone number might not always have been easy to find in the directory however since it was sometimes under the name of the organization running the clinic sometimes under the hospital or local authority on whose premises the clinics was held and sometime under the council authority on whose premises the clinic was held and sometimes under health department. 43% of the clinics received calls only during clinic sessions. The difficulty of arranging babysitting was shown to be one of the most serious obstacles to visiting a family planning clinic. Only about 1/10 of local authority clinics had evening hours whereas 4/5 of FPA clinics did. Very few had special youth advisory sessions.