“I was feeling quite mentally fragile. I would have been in no state to cycle the 15 minutes home on a freezing dark January night,” said an anonymous second year student who recently had an intrauterine device (IUD) fitted at Cambridge’s Lime Tree Clinic.

Long-term preventative contraception

Students in Cambridge who want long term preventative contraception, such as IUDs or the contraceptive implant, can obtain it from either their GP or the Lime Tree sexual health and contraception clinic at Brookfields Hospital on Mill Road. The Lime Tree clinic offers a range of services, from fitting contraceptive implants and intrauterine devices to STI testing and emergency contraception.

However, students have complained of the relative difficulty of travelling to the Lime Tree clinic, which is a 30-minute walk from the city centre.

Speaking to Varsity, the student who had an IUD fitted at the clinic complained of the effort required to travel for an appointment: “The eight pounds it cost me each way I would rather have spent on something else.”

She also spoke of the long time period between first contacting the clinic about getting an IUD fitted and the procedure actually happening. After waiting three weeks for the initial consultation in Michaelmas Term, the backlog of bookings for fittings meant she had to wait until Lent Term to have the IUD fitted.

Emily Loud, Communications Specialist for the Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust, which runs sexual health services such as the Lime Tree Clinic in Cambridge, said to Varsity that they were aware of the difficulty of making time for contraception-related appointments and “are looking for other ways to make LARC [long acting reversible contraception] even easier to access”, including receiving the contraceptive injection or implant in one visit rather than multiple.

Currently in Cambridgeshire, “iCaSH [integrated contraception and sexual health] fits most patients requesting an IUD for regular contraception within 3-4 weeks, but often sooner.”

She added that “copper intrauterine devices for emergency contraception will nearly always be fitted within 5 days. Most implants will be fitted when the patient attends an appointment, which is usually arranged within two weeks of contacting us.”

GP practices in Cambridge similarly reported a backlog for IUD fittings. A representative from Newnham Walk GP surgery told Varsity “we like patients to see a doctor to discuss the procedure and take some swabs before we book them into our IUD clinic, which is usually one morning a week.”

They added that “the IUD clinics tend to fill up because we have a big student population”, saying that patients usually had to wait several weeks for an available appointment.

Working hours additionally constrict the availability of contraception to students, with all GP practices in the city centre closed on Saturdays and Sundays, and the Lime Tree clinic closed on Sundays and only open from 9am to 12 noon on Saturdays. This Saturday clinic is appointment-only for contraception and does not cater to walk-ins.

Loud added that LARC is “an effective form of contraception that should be available to all who need it.”

Accessing emergency contraception

Access to emergency contraception was found to be particularly difficult for some students, with factors including cost and availability complicating students’ access to the ‘morning after’ pill.

The NHS website states that the morning after pill can be obtained free of charge from contraception clinics, Brook centres, some pharmacies, most sexual health clinics, most NHS walk-in centres and minor injuries units, most GP surgeries and some A&E departments.

It also states that the morning after pill can be bought from most pharmacies. The two types of pill, Levonelle and ellaOne, can be bought for approximately £25 and £35 respectively.

GPs can prescribe emergency contraception to patients registered at their practice. However, students cannot be registered with a GP practice simultaneously at home and at university, creating difficulties for students who wish to seek preventative or emergency contraception in Cambridge without giving up their registration at their home GP practice.

This means that some students are limited to visiting a pharmacy to obtain the pill, where it is possible that they will be charged.

One first-year student spoke to Varsity about how they had to buy emergency contraception from Superdrug due to not being registered with a GP in Cambridge. She said the £30 she had to pay for the pill at a pharmacy really put her “out of pocket” and “added hugely to the stress of worrying about having had unprotected sex”.

Superdrug, one distributor of the morning after pill in Cambridge, sells four brands of emergency contraceptive pill (ECP) ranging in price between £13.45 and £33.25.

Speaking about the cost of the ECP, one of the pharmacists at Superdrug on Sidney Street told Varsity: “If the pharmacist that has accreditation is working in the pharmacy we can give it for free. If the pharmacist is not in the store then, we can’t.”

“We give them the option if they want to pay, or to come another day. So it depends if they need it now and if they are happy to pay. If not, they can go to another place.” They added that their store had only one pharmacist who was accredited.

Other pharmacies in Cambridge also said that getting a free morning after pill depended on whether an accredited pharmacist happened to be in, or how busy the pharmacy was.

A manager of the Boots branch on Petty Cury told Varsity the morning after pill “can be free, or sometimes they do charge depending on the situation.”

“It depends whether the pharmacist is accredited or not and how busy we are – it depends if we have a pharmacist available who can do it.”

The manager did not know how commonly people were given the pill for free or not, or how many of their pharmacists could were accredited to give it out for free following consultation.

The pharmacist at Janks N K pharmacy in the Newnham area of Cambridge told Varsity the emergency contraceptive pill could be bought over the counter for a fee, or could sometimes be given for free depending on how busy they were that day.

“For emergency contraceptive hormones we can do an interview if we are not busy, but if I’m really busy and I’m on my own then I can’t do it.”

Contraception in college

The access to other types of contraception, such as male and female condoms, is relatively easy compared to long acting reversible contraception and emergency contraception, as CUSU provides a variety of condoms, dental dams, female condoms, lubes and pregnancy tests which welfare reps then distribute in colleges.

It seems that long acting reversible contraception and emergency contraception, however, has a long way to go.

Speaking to Varsity, the Newnham College JCR welfare rep said “CUSU runs a great service providing contraception to welfare officers to distribute among their own colleges, however different colleges take different approaches to how they do this.”

“Newnham’s anonymous request form is a great way to make sure everyone has easy access to anything they need without feeling under pressure in any way.”