Recommendation 37

The renewed Women’s Health Strategy must include increasing access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) as a top priority. There must be a shift across the healthcare system to view LARC as a tool for menstrual health management, not only for contraception. The current commissioning rules prevent far too many girls and women from accessing LARC for menstrual health management, including younger and older women, and women who do not have sex with men. A shift from viewing LARC only as contraception to viewing it as a tool for menstrual health management would also help reduce stigma as a barrier to access. All women whose 76 menstrual health management could benefit from LARC should be able to access it. Measures to produce this shift must be set out in the renewed Women’s Health Strategy. (Recommendation, Paragraph 143)