Teenage Pregnancy Unit (Tpu) Update: June 2011

Teenage Pregnancy Unit (Tpu) Update: June 2011

TEENAGE PREGNANCY UNIT (TPU) UPDATE: OCTOBER 2012

1.This short update includes information about new data releases and policy announcements in the last 3 months. The update is scoped widely to cover relevant information for teenage pregnancy prevention and support for teenage parents, including policies which address underlying risk factors.All the information is in the public domain so please feel free to send on to relevant colleagues.

Data Releases

2.Second quarter 2011 under 18 conception data for England and Waleswere published by ONS on,Wednesday, 29 August. These data include national and local authority under-18 and under-16 conception statistics.

National headlines

Under-18 conception rates

  • The rate of under-18 conceptions was 34.7 per 1000 girls aged 15-17 – 6.7% lower than the rate of 37.2 for the second quarter of 2010. For under-18 conceptions, the rolling four quarterly average continues to fall and is at its lowest since quarterly data collection began.
  • The number of under-18 conceptions was 7,900, down from 8,600 in the second quarter of 2010. The number of conceptions for under 16s was 1,600, down from 1,700 for the second quarter of 2010.
  • The proportion of conceptions leading to abortion for under-18 conceptions was 49.6%, down from 51.4% in the second quarter of 2010. The proportion of conceptions leading to abortion for under-16 conceptions was 57.7%, down from 64.4% in the second quarter of 2010.

Under -16 conception rates

  • The rate of under-16 conceptions was 7.3 per 1000 girls aged 13-15 – 5.2% lower than the rate of 7.7 for the second quarter of 2010. The under-16 rolling four quarterly average continues to fall and is at its lowest since quarterly data collection began.

Other age groups

  • The rate of under-20 conceptions also decreased (by 6%) compared with the second quarter of 2010; from 55.9 conceptions per 1,000 girls aged 15-19 to 52.8 conceptions per 1,000.
  • The overall conception rate for women of all ages was up by 1% compared with the second quarter of 2010 (82.1 conceptions per 1,000 women 15-44 compared with 81.3 in 2010), reversing the downward trend from recent quarters. Conception rates fell for all age groups under 30. In contrast to the first quarter data, the conception rate for women aged 30-34 was up by 3% compared with the second quarter of 2010, from 125.7 conceptions per 1,000 women to 129.9 conceptions per 1,000.

Regional variation

All regions saw reductions in their under 18 conception rates compared with the second quarter 2010, with most regions seeing reductions below 10%. The biggest reduction (13%) was in Yorkshire and Humber and the smallest (1%) in the East Midlands.

Across all regions the rolling quarterly average under -18 conception rate is at its lowest level since the start of quarterly data records in 1998.

London: The rate of under-18 conceptions fell by 12% from Q2 2010. The rolling quarterly average shows a continuing decline in conception rates.

North East: The rate of under-18 conceptions fell by 6% from Q2 2010. The rolling quarterly average shows a continuing decline in conception rates.

South East: The rate of under-18 conceptions fell by 4% from Q2 2010. The rolling quarterly average has fallen over the last four quarters.

Yorkshire and Humber: The rate of under-18 conceptions fell by 13% from Q2 2010. The rolling quarterly average shows a continuing decline in conception rates.

South West: The rate of under-18 conceptions fell by 6% from Q2 2010. The rolling quarterly average shows a continuing decline in conception rates.

North West: The rate of under-18 conceptions fell by 4% from Q2 2010. The rolling quarterly average shows a continuing decline in conception rates.

East Midlands: The rate of under-18 conception decreased by 1% from Q2 2010. The rolling quarterly average shows a continuing decline in conception rates.

West Midlands: The rate of under-18 conceptions decreased by 6% from Q2 2010.The rolling quarterly average conception rate has fallen over the last seven quarters.

East of England: The rate of under-18 conceptions decreased by 5% from Q2 2010. The rolling quarterly average has fallen over the past four quarters.

3.Previously, the Department calculated local authority under 18 conception rates using the under-18 conception data published by the Office for National Statistics. The ONS now calculate local authority rates as part of their under 18 conception data releases. Local authority rates for the first and second quarter of 2011 were published by the ONS alongside the national figures.A link to the ONS bulletin with the quarterly conception statistics is here:

Abortion Data

4.The most recent data for rates of abortion are for 2011 and were published in May 2012. The main findings are:

  • The abortion rate per 1,000 women resident in England aged under - 18 was 15.0 compared to 16.6 in 2010. This represents a 9.6% decrease in the rate.
  • 96% of abortions in England and Wales were funded by the NHS. Of these, over half (61%) took place in the independent sector under NHS contract.
  • 91% of abortions in England and Wales were carried out at under 13 weeks gestation; 78% were at under 10 weeks. The under 10 weeks percentage has risen since 2002 when the figure was 57%.
  • The proportion of repeat abortions for all women having abortions in 2011 was 36%, higher than in 2010 (34%): 26% of women aged under 25 undergoing abortion had one or more previous abortions slightly higher than the proportion as in 2010 (25%).
  • However, repeat abortions to under-18s show a small decline. In 2011, 7.2% of abortions for women aged under-18 were repeat abortions, compared to 7.9% in 2010. Repeat abortion data by PCT has been sent to TP leads.

5.For the headline findings/data tables on the DH website please follow this link- . The data in tables 10a and 10b give the numbers and rates of under 18 and under 16 abortions for England, broken down by PCT.

6.The ONS sent under 18 conception ward data for the period 2008-10 to TP leads in July. Ward data is very helpful for informing Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) and work to narrow inequaliaties, so do contact ONS by email at if you haven’t yet got access to the data.

6a The TPU sent TP leads data on hotspot wards (areas with at least 58.4 conceptions per 1,000 women aged 15-17) on 10 October. The data is important for informing JSNA work as well. It would also be useful in discussions with other professionals involved in work around narrowing inequalities. Please email if you have not received the hotspot ward data.

7,The next quarterly data, Quarter 3, 2011, will be published by ONS at the end of November, 2012.

Policy Announcements

8.You will find below a brief update on the key vehicles for taking forward teenage pregnancy policy: the Health Reforms, the Sexual Health Strategy Positive for Youth and the Child Poverty Strategy. Other relevant policy developments are also included below.

Health Reforms

New Public Health System - The Health and Social Care Act (2012)

9. In March, the Health and Social Care Bill gained Royal Assent to become the Health and Social Care Act (2012). From April 2013, upper-tier and unitary local authorities will have new public health duties. While local authorities will be largely free to determine their own priorities and services, they are required to have regard to the Public Health Outcomes Framework which sets out the broad range of opportunities to improve and protect health across the life course. Local authorities will also be required to provide a small number of mandatory services including:

  • access to sexual health services;
  • NHS Health Check assessments
  • planning to protect the health of the population;
  • the National Child Measurement Programme, and
  • providing public health advice to NHS commissioners.

10.The NHS will deliver specific public health services, such as childhood immunisations and national screening programmes, and will use the millions of patient contacts that take place each day as opportunities to promote healthier living.

11 Local authorities will be funded to carry out their public health functions by a ring-fenced grant. The Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation is developing a formula to inform the future allocation of resources to local authorities for their public health responsibilities.. The allocations to local authorities for 2013-14 will be published by the end of this year.

Key public health milestones in 2012/13 for local areas

  • Autumn 2012 – publication of Public Health Outcomes Framework indicators by LA
  • Autumn 2012 – publication of public health workforce strategy
  • Autumn/Winter 2012 – Joint Strategic Needs Assessment completed
  • April 2013 - local authorities will take on new public health responsibilities and the Health and Wellbeing Board will publish its local Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy

12.More information on the health reforms can be found in the special edition of the NHS Bulletin : The monthand theTransforming Public Healthbulletin. To see the Bulletin, use this link –

Children’s and Young People’s Health Outcomes Strategy

13.In January, the SecretaryState for Health announced the development of a Children and Young People's Health Outcomes Strategy to be led by an independent Children and Young People's Forum. The Forum drew together independent experts from local government, the NHS and VCS organisations and was jointly chaired by Professor Ian Lewis, Medical Director at the Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, and Christine Lenehan, Director at the Council for Disabled Children.
14.The Forum has published its report on the DH website and a Government response will follow in the autumn. The report includes recommendations which are relevant to teenage pregnancy (prevention and support) and to wider young people’s health improvements. You can see the report by accessing this link:

New vision for School Nursing

15.On 12 March, DH published a vision and call to action for school nursing services. It sets out an ambitionthat the service vision and model for school nursing services developed through the School Nursing Development Programme will be a framework for local services that meet both current and future needs. School nurse publicity material developed by young people for young people was launched in August. The link for more information is:

Sexual Health

16.The Department of Health is due to publish the Government’ssexual health policy document later this year. The document will take an evidence-based approach to address the key issues in sexual health in order to:-

  • improve the health and wellbeing of the whole population,
  • contribute to reducing health inequalities, and
  • build an honest and open culture where everyone has the skills and knowledge to make responsible decisions .

17. The document will also set out the support and resources available to Local Authorities, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), and the NHS Commissioning Boardsto help them to commission high quality and seamless care pathways across all elements of sexual health,and which link into other public health and wider responsibilities. The document will coverpreventing teenage pregnancy (an indicator in the Public Health Outcomes Framework) as one of the key issues in sexual health.

Pregnancy Counselling

18.The issue of counselling for women considering abortion was debated in the House of Commons on the 7th September 2011, as a suggested amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 by Nadine Dorries MP, who wanted counselling to be independent of the abortion provider.

19.During the debate, theMinister for Public Healthcommitted to look into this issue and to consider whether improvements are needed to the offer of counselling support that is currently available to women considering an abortion. Work is underway currently on this issue and a document will be published as soon as possible.

Positive for Youth

20.In Positive for Youth, the Department committed to publishing and consulting on shorter and clearer statutory guidance on local authorities’ duty to secure access to sufficient educational and recreational leisure-time activities to improve their wellbeing (Education Act 1996 Section 507B). The consultation closed on 25 May and the revised guidance and consultation report were published on 12 July. The new guidance makes it clear that the duty relates not only to things for young people to do in their leisure time but to a wide range of out-of-school activity to support their development and wellbeing. To access the guidance click on this link:

21.The British Youth Council has been awarded grant funding to help promote youth voice at national and local level. As part of this, a new National Scrutiny Group has been established (a representative youth group to scrutinise and advise on policy developments). The first meeting was held on 2 July – where the main agenda item was policy around internet safety for young people, as part of the Bailey Review. The issue of Healthwatch was also discussed. The next meeting will be on 24th October and is likely to feature key stage 4 exam reform as one of the topics. A Youth Select Committee pilot, focussing on young people’s transport issues was also held – with hearings on 6th and 13th July. A report from the pilot is due in mid October.

22.The United Futures consortium (Business in the community, NCB, and UKYouth) is working to test new approaches to help scale up and improve brokerage between businesses and youth organisations. The programme has three phases:

•An audit to understand and articulate the current landscape for businesses and youth service working together

•Developing and building the capacity and ability of business and the youth sector to work together, including piloting a new brokerage model in Plymouth.

•A fifteen month promotion phase – promoting wider engagement opportunities nationally and running a series of regional ‘cafe style’ events.

23.The audit was published earlier this year and will help to inform the next stage of the programme in helping more youth organisations and businesses to work together for the benefit of young people. United Futures is currently working to sign more organisations up to the programme through a series of regional events.

24.As part of its work for Catalyst (DfE’s national strategic partner for the voluntary youth sector) the Young Foundation has developed a Framework of Outcomes to help evidence the impact of services for young people. This will support understanding and measurement of the connections between personal and social development and longer-term outcomes for young people. Further information and the Framework itself can be found at:.

For further updates on Positive for Youth see:

Youth Innovation Zone

25.We committed additional funding through the Local Government Association of £230k in 2011-12 and £550k in 2012-13 to ensure local authorities get the support they need. The bulk of this funding (around £660k) was set aside for the funding of Youth Innovation Zones to help lead the way in new, pioneering, and innovative system-wide approaches to involving all local partners in improving young people’s outcomes. 4 zones (Knowsley, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, and a consortium of councils led by Devon County Council) were funded in 2011-12. The 2012-13 programme covers 12 zones (Barking & Dagenham, Bedford, Norfolk, Salford, Sefton, Shropshire, Somerset, Stockton, Wiltshire and York; and an extension for Knowsley and Haringey). Each Youth Innovation Zone project will produce a case study which will explore what has been learned from their projects by the end of the year.

National Citizen Service (NCS)

26. NCS 2012 commenced in June. Providers continued to recruit in their regions for delivery throughout the summer. Progress is being made on the commissioning process for delivery of NCS 2013/14.

27.The lessons learned from 2011 are already being fed into the management of the 2012 providers. A full report of the findings from both pilot years will be published in February 2013.

Review of PSHE

28.The online consultation phase of the PSHE review closed at the end of November 2011. The Department is currently considering next steps for PSHE education in parallel with its on-going review of the national curriculum.In the meantime, please do continue to use the Sex Education Forum and the PSHE Association for evidence based briefings and examples of good practice.

PSHE and the new Ofsted Inspection Framework

29.The PSHE Association has produced a very helpful briefing on the new Ofsted Inspection Framework which now focuses on four key judgements::

• Achievement.

• Quality of teaching.

• Behaviour and safety of pupils.

• Quality of leadership and management.

The briefing makes clear how a well planned coherent and effective PSHE programme will provide concrete evidence of the school’s provision in promoting pupils’ behaviour and safety and their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. With inspections having a stronger emphasis on lessons, it is likely that PSHE education lessons will be inspected. Additionally, there will be 60 subject inspections annually of PSHE education by Ofsted.

Top View