New sexual health centre opening in Milton Keynes

At 2.30pm on Friday 16th April, the charity BPAS (the British Pregnancy Advisory Service) will be officially opening in new, centrally located premises to help over 2,400 women and men from Milton Keynes and surrounding counties every year with their sexual health and contraception needs. BPAS will also support local women with unintended pregnancies by offering non-directive counselling about their pregnancy options, including the option of abortion referral with scanning and medical assessment at the centre.

Advice and treatment at the dedicated new centre will be free of charge to people from the Milton Keynes area, funded by the NHS working in partnership with BPAS.

All are welcome to access sexual healthcare testing services such as Chlamydia testing and free pregnancy testing and advice without appointment. Emergency contraception will also be available to women in advance of need, as part of a consultation about regular contraception with a trained BPAS nurse.

BPAS has been caring for clients from Milton Keynes since 1987, when the local NHS ceased to provide the full range of contraception and abortion services. In recent years the charity was invited by local PCTs to develop additional services and a permanent base in Milton Keynes. BPAS initially utilised local NHS premises to provide consultations but only at specific times when rooms were unused. The Milton Keynes Community Foundation has stepped in to lease the charity a permanent home on Midsummer Boulevard as a resource to the local community. The new centre in Acorn House will offer new services and open at evenings and weekends. It is close to bus and train stations and the central shopping area so will be easy to find for clients referred in from other parts of Buckinghamshire, Northampton and Bedfordshire.

BPAS’ new centre has been approved by the Department of Health as a pregnancy advisory bureau. Because of the availability of very early methods of abortion (the non-surgical ‘pill’ method) and its role in bringing down waiting times for abortion treatment for women, BPAS is also applying to the Care Quality Commission, the national health and social care inspectorate for a licence to offer early abortion treatment under 63 days (9 weeks) from the centre. This would allow women the choice of accessing local, non-surgical abortion care, in line with broader moves in healthcare to bring appropriate health services into the community.

BPAS will see men in Milton Keynes for Chlamydia testing and vasectomy referral, and if the centre is able to take on additional space in future, it hopes to develop a modern non-scalpel vasectomy service from the centre with Care Quality Commission approval.

The centre will be officially opened at 2.30pm on Friday 16th April by Dr Phyllis Starkey (MP for Milton Keynes from 1997 to 2010), together with Julia Upton from the Milton Keynes Community Foundation and Ann Furedi, Chief Executive of BPAS. They will then tour the facility and meet with local doctors, nurses and GPs.

Please call the BPAS press office on 07788 725 185 for more information, to request an interview, or to request press access in order to cover the opening of the new clinic.

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