New contraception-only clinic

In view of this, we felt there was a contraceptive unmet need within our community. A small working group was convened to consider these issues. With the aim of redressing this unmet need we decided to pilot an open-access walk-in contraception-only clinic. The pilot started on 1 December 2014 and ran until 31 January 2015, from 2 to 4 pm, 5 days a week. It was staffed by experienced nursing staff. Those wishing to access the clinic were asked to complete a screening form to self-determine their suitability for the clinic. This document indicated that the clinic was only for those who required a repeat of their ongoing contraception, who had no problems with their chosen method, were not more than 14 weeks since their last contraceptive injection, did not experience any intermenstrual or postcoital bleeding or have any common medical or medication contraindications. If individuals were found to be unsuitable for the clinic the next available appointment for a contraception or GUM clinic was provided. Women were eligible even if they had not accessed contraceptive services from our clinic before, as long as they were content with their current method. This decision was made because the service is located in a large university city and we did not wish to alienate students and because we would prefer that the student population accessed these services rather than those targeted at under 19's, freeing up those services for potentially more vulnerable young people. The new clinic was advertised by poster within the clinic and nearby universities, by clinic reception staff taking telephone enquiries and on the service website.

Following their consultation, patients were asked to complete a short questionnaire detailing how long they had to wait to be seen, how convenient the service was, whether they would use the clinic again, whether they would recommend it to others, how they heard about it and finally the times they would like the clinic to be available. A total of 190 individuals attended the clinic during the pilot. Of those, 70 patients (37% of attendees) completed feedback forms. Analysis indicated that 40% of attendees had their consultation within 5 minutes of their arrival at clinic, 42% were seen within 10–15 minutes, 10% within 20–25 minutes, 4% within 40–45 minutes and 4% within 50–60 minutes. Sixty-seven of those responding found it very convenient and three found the service moderately convenient. All those who responded said they would recommend the clinic to their friends and 99% said they would use it again. The majority of those accessing the clinic had telephoned to make an appointment and were made aware of the service; others were informed by friends or via the website. The most common reason for attending was that they were running out of contraception and that they were unable to been seen in general practice.

Given that this was a new service, which ran over Christmas and New Year, we felt that the attendance rates and feedback from attendees supported continuation of the clinic. As a result of the pilot, alterations were introduced to improve the service. These included modifying the self-assessment form to more clearly indicate that the clinic is only suitable for those established on and happy with their current contraception. Questions which caused confusion were removed. Further, the option of attending a pre-existing walk-in, health care assistant-run, asymptomatic screening clinic was added, therefore allowing patients to retain access to a comprehensive service. We have increased the amount of information available for reception staff to provide when calls are received about the nature of the clinic, to reduce attendances by women who are not suitable. While we acknowledge that despite our best efforts this will still occur from time to time, the provision of more information at the outset will act to further reduce these occurrences.