Reproductive health statistics for England

Summary

‘Sexual and reproductive health’ covers a broad range of health matters, from sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and contraception to relationships and conception. It is an important aspect of the overall health and wellbeing of both individuals and communities.

This briefing covers reproductive health statistics for England while a separate Commons Library briefing focuses on sexual health statistics.

Reproductive health affects both men and women; the World Health Organization says that it includes “all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its functions and processes”. The British Medical Association, however, notes that the reproductive health of a population is “typically measured by pregnancy related ‘morbidity’ outcomes such as rates of abortion or repeat abortion and teenage pregnancy”.

Conception rates among women of childbearing age in England have declined in recent years, with the data suggesting that the rate (71.5 per 1,000 women) in 2021 and 2022 were the lowest since 2001.

Conception rates among girls under the age of 18 fell year-on-year between 2007 and 2020, before increasing slightly in 2021 and 2022.

Around 248,000 conceptions led to legal abortions in England and Wales in 2022, which is the highest number ever recorded. Between 2012 and 2022, abortion rates slightly increased for women of all ages. Just under 90% of abortions in 2022 were performed between two to nine weeks gestation.

Contraception

Reproductive health affects both men and women; it includes “pregnancy-related health, some aspects of sexual health and health unrelated to pregnancy”.¹ The World Health Organization (WHO) defines reproductive health as:

[…] a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, in all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its functions and processes. Reproductive health implies that people are able to have a satisfying and safe sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so.²

The British Medical Association (BMA) notes that the WHO’s definition frames reproductive health as a “positive state associated with well-being” but adds that the reproductive health of a population is “typically measured by pregnancy related ‘morbidity’ outcomes such as rates of abortion or repeat abortion and teenage pregnancy”.³

Contraception, sometimes referred to as ‘birth control’, is the use of medicines, devices, procedures or surgery to prevent pregnancy. There are multiple types of effective contraception that work in different ways:

• Barrier methods, such as condoms and diaphragms or caps, work by stopping sperm from either entering a woman’s body or from entering the uterus.
• Hormonal methods include oral contraceptives, contraceptive injections, implants and patches, as well as vaginal rings. These contain either progestogen, or a combination of progestogen and oestrogen, and prevent pregnancy by stopping the ovaries releasing an egg each month.
• Surgical methods involve procedures that permanently stop eggs meeting sperm (female sterilisation) or permanently stops sperm travelling from the testes to the penis (male sterilisation, also known as a vasectomy).⁴

Prescriptions for contraceptives are automatically exempt from prescription charges. Contraception is also available for free from sexual health clinics, some GP surgeries and some young people’s services.⁵ Since December 2023, it has also been possible for some pharmacies to prescribe contraceptive pills without the person first needing to see or contact a GP or nurse.⁶ In October 2025, as part of an expansion of pharmacy services, NHS England announced that the emergency contraceptive pill could now be accessed free of charge across pharmacies in England, without first needing to see a GP or access a sexual health clinic.⁷

Access to free contraception, however, varies across England. Public Health England reported in 2018 that “one-third of women are unable to access contraception from their preferred source”.⁸ Freedom of information requests made in the same year showed that 49% of local authorities had reduced, or planned to reduce, the number of sites providing contraceptive services in their area.⁹

More recently, in 2022, the Women’s Health Strategy for England, published by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), acknowledged that “women can struggle to access basic services such as contraception”. One of the government’s “10-year ambitions”, set out in the strategy, is that “all women who want contraception are able to access their preferred type of contraception in a convenient way”.¹⁰ This commitment was reiterated in the Renewed Women’s Health Strategy, published in April 2026. ¹¹

Contraception can also be purchased; for example, condoms can be bought in pharmacies, supermarkets and online, while emergency contraception (contraception used after unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy) can be bought from pharmacies.

Data on accessing contraception

There is no single data set that captures all contraception provision across all services in England. NHS Digital publishes data on contraceptive activity taking place at dedicated sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services in England. Data on contraceptive prescribing in GP practices is supplied by the Prescription Services Division of the NHS Business Services Authority. Both datasets show a recent decline in prescriptions for contraception, particularly during the covid-19 pandemic.¹²

Limited data is available on services provided in hospital out-patient clinics, or contraception purchased at pharmacies and in other retail settings.

Contraception accessed through specialist sexual and reproductive health services

In the 2024/25 financial year, there were just under 1 million contacts made with specialist sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services in England for contraception-related reasons. There has been a general declining trend since 2014/15 (1.9 million contacts), as shown in the chart below.

A ‘contact’ is a record of activity at a SRH service; it does not provide a count of the number of contraceptive items provided. It is also possible for the same person to access SRH services on multiple, separate occasions, in which case each occasion would count as an individual contact.

NHS Digital observes that the likelihood of a person using SRH services will be influenced by the availability of such services in their local area.¹³

Prescriptions dispensed in the community

Prescriptions for contraceptives are written primarily by GPs and non-medical healthcare prescribers, such as nurses and pharmacists. This does not include contraceptives provided by SRH services, except in instances when a prescription item is unavailable directly from the service.

In 2024, 6.6 million contraceptive prescriptions were dispensed in the community. The number of contraceptive prescriptions has fallen in the last 10 years, from 8.6 million in 2014.¹⁴

Methods of contraception

Contraceptive methods are classified in NHS statistics as either user dependent or long-acting reversible contraception (LARC). User dependent methods of contraception include condoms and the contraceptive pill. LARC is defined as contraceptive methods that require administration less than once per cycle or month and include the non-hormonal copper coil (the IUD), the hormonal coil (the IUS), the contraceptive injection and the hormonal implant.

LARC has been promoted as a reliable method of contraception as it “removes the risk of pregnancy due to missed doses, or incorrect use, which can occur with other contraceptive methods”.¹⁵ In its LARC clinical guideline, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) states that “LARC methods may have a wider role in contraception” and that their “increased uptake could help to reduce unintended pregnancy”.¹⁶

LARC is also considered a “highly cost-effective public health intervention” by Public Health England (PHE). In July 2021, PHE estimated a ‘return on investment’ of £48 for every £1 invested in LARC in primary care.¹⁷

Types of contraception

While the overall number of women and girls using SRH services for contraception has decreased in recent years from around 1.9 million in 201/15 to 1 million in 2024/25, the proportion of those choosing LARC has increased (51% compared to 37% in 2014/15).

The NHS Digital report on Contraception in England describes data on contacts with sexual and reproductive health services, emergency contraception, methods of contraception, and sterilisations and vasectomies. This includes data for small areas and trends over time.

Conceptions and abortions

Abortion is a medical intervention to end a pregnancy. A medical abortion involves taking two different medicines (mifepristone and misoprostol) to end the pregnancy, usually one or two days apart. A surgical abortion involves an operation to remove the pregnancy from the womb. Both medical and surgical abortions can only be carried out under the care of an NHS hospital or a licensed clinic.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes annual statistics on conceptions to residents in England and Wales. Here a conception is defined as a pregnancy that leads either to a maternity (birth of a live-born or stillborn child) or an abortion. ONS conception statistics do not include miscarriages.

The latest data is for 2022, when the number of conceptions rose from around 818,000 in 2020 to 834,000 in 2021.

The percentage of conceptions leading to legal abortions has increased fairly steadily over the past 10 years. Around 30% of conceptions led to abortions in 2022, up from 21% in 2012. The vast majority (just under 90%) of abortions are carried out in the first 10 weeks of gestation.

Further information and statistics on abortions can also be found on the DHSC page: Abortion statistics commentary, England and Wales: 2023.

The Abortion Act 1967 (as amended) provides that abortions carried out in accordance with the conditions in the 1967 act will not be criminal offences under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929. Abortion is thus lawful in England, Scotland, and Wales provided the criteria in the Abortion Act 1967 are met. In addition, section 241 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 disapplies the existing criminal law on abortion in England and Wales (including the 1861 and 1929 acts) for women acting in relation to their own pregnancies, at any gestation.¹⁸

In most cases, under the 1967 act, abortions can be performed up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. There are grounds in the 1967 act for abortions to take place after 24 weeks, for example if the:

• “termination is necessary to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman”¹⁹ or if;
• “continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the pregnant woman, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated”²⁰ or if;
• “there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped”.²¹

The Abortion Act 1967 never extended to Northern Ireland, though abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in October 2019 and medical and surgical abortions are available.

Further information can be found in the Library briefing on Abortion in Northern Ireland: recent changes to the legal framework.

Early medical abortion

The 1967 act was amended by Section 178 of the Health and Care Act 2022 (and the Abortion (Amendment) Regulations 2022). This permits early medical abortion, where the pregnancy has not exceeded nine weeks and six days, to take place at home, providing certain conditions are met. The 2022 regulations extend to England and Wales; they made permanent a temporary measure that was introduced during the covid-19 pandemic.

The regulations allow both tablets for early medical abortion (mifepristone and misoprostol) to be taken at home, without the need to attend a hospital or clinic first. The same medical consultation requirements remain but can be provided via a video link, over the telephone or by other electronic means.

Further information is provided in the Library briefing on Early medical abortion at home during and after the pandemic.

A detailed analysis of conceptions, teenage conceptions, and abortions can be found in the ONS publication Conceptions in England and Wales.

Cervical screening

‘Screening’ involves testing an otherwise healthy group of people for a disease or condition, before they are showing any symptoms. Its aim is to improve health outcomes by detecting and treating disease at an early stage.

Cervical screening is one of 11 NHS population screening programmes available in England. The cervix is the opening to the uterus (womb). The NHS cervical screening programme aims to prevent cervical cancer by taking a small sample of cells from the cervix and testing them for a virus called human papillomavirus (HPV).

Cancer Research UK notes that ‘high-risk’ HPV can cause cervical cells to become abnormal and can develop into cancer over time (though not all cell changes will develop into cancer).²² Cervical screening is thus not a test for cancer but rather a test for high-risk HPV. The NHS notes that HPV is spread through close “skin-to-skin contact of the genital area” as well as from sex and sharing sex toys.²³

In England, cervical screening is currently offered to people aged 25 to 64 who are registered as female with their GP.²⁴ The first invitation to eligible people is sent just before they turn 25. People aged 25 to 64 years receive an invitation every five years or more frequently if HPV is detected.²⁵ People aged 65 and over will only be invited again if a recent test was abnormal.

Coverage for cervical screening refers to the proportion of those eligible who have received a test within the recommended time-period.

In the 2023/24 financial year, 5.1 million individuals aged 25 to 64 were invited for cervical screening.²⁶ This equates to a coverage rate of 68.8%. Total coverage has fallen since the start of the pandemic, from 72.2% in 2019/20.²⁷

Coverage varies across different regions in England, ranging from 61.6% in London to 72.5% in the North East in 2023/24.²⁸

A detailed analysis of screening statistics can be found in the NHS Digital publication on the Cervical Screening Programme in England.

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