The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has issued an updated quality standard focusing on care for women of any age including those aged under 18 years who request an abortion.
The key goals of the quality standard are improvements in the following areas:
- choice of abortion technique;
- waiting time between referral and procedure;
- the proportion of abortions performed up to 10 weeks’ gestation; and
- patients' satisfaction with abortion care.
The quality standard covers the following six recommendations:
- Healthcare commissioners and providers should work collaboratively to improve access to abortion services.
- Women requesting an abortion should be offered a choice between medical and surgical abortion up to and including 23+6 weeks' gestation.
- Women who opt for an abortion should be offered the option to have the procedure within 1 week of assessment.
- Women having a medical abortion up to and including 9+6 weeks' gestation should be offered the option of taking misoprostol at home.
- Women having an abortion who seek contraception should be offered their method of choice before discharge, either at the time of abortion or after expulsion of the pregnancy at the earliest.
- Women having an abortion should be provided advice on accessing post-abortion care and support.
Health professionals should also consider the quality standards on sexual health and contraception when providing services for abortion care, NICE said.
This article originally appeared on Univadis, part of the Medscape Professional Network.
