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New moves to reduce teenage pregnancies

The government has announced new plans to try to prevent unwanted teenage pregnancies, in the light of evidence that no progress has been made towards the Health of the Nation target set in 1992.

Britain has one of the highest rates of teenage conception in the developed world. A third of these — and one in two in girls under 16 — end in abortion.

But despite the Health of the Nation target to reduce the rate ‘by at least 50 per cent by the year 2000’, teenage conception rates were the same in 1995 as they were in 1980, while the under-16 rate had risen by 18 per cent.

Public health minister Tessa Jowell announced in November that four task groups would be set up to tackle the problem. Two groups would involve teenagers ‘directly’, the government said, and all would address social inequalities.

‘Teenage conceptions tend to be both a symptom and a cause of social inequality’, Ms Jowell said. ‘They can become part of a cycle of deprivation.’

The four groups will focus on: sex and relationships education; vulnerable and hard to reach groups; commissioning and providing family planning services; and research and development.

A national action plan will be developed at a ‘mini-summit’ in early 1998.