Anger at sexual-health policy delay; Almost four years on: still no

More than 34,000 Scottish teenagers have become pregnant since the Scottish Executive announced plans for its sexual health strategy.

But despite the pledge made by former health minister Susan Deacon in 1999, the Executive still cannot give a specific date for when the long-awaited policy will be published.

Children's groups and health charities have expressed "disappointment" and "frustration" at the delay. They point out that teenagers continue to get pregnant and rates of sexually transmitted diseases continue to rise while the action plan is held up in the "too-difficult-to-deal-with tray".

The Sunday Herald revealed in June that the Catholic Church's representative on the expert group appointed by the Executive to write the strategy, Fr Joe Chambers, refused to sign the final draft. The Church called on Scotland's one million Catholics to oppose the government's policy, which will recommend sexual health clinics be set up in, or linked to, schools.

Deacon first promised the strategy at an annual conference of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine on December 2, 1999.

She said: "Teenage pregnancy and sexual health form one of our greatest challenges. Not only is it a health problem, it is a problem for society - one we tend not to talk about because not everyone agrees."

She added: "I am announcing today that I am establishing a new group to develop this strategy."

And health experts point out that, while Scotland's teenage pregnancy record is worse than England's, a national teenage pregnancy strategy was introduced south of the Border in 1999. This was followed in England by a national strategy for sexual health and HIV in July 2001.

Scotland's sexual health strategy will cover both teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.

David Johnson, director of Waverley Care Trust, the Scottish Aids and HIV charity, said: "This strategy is long overdue. I think Scotland desperately needs a good sexual health strategy. We know that from all the data on teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.

"We now have another generation of young people who do not have access to sexual health information and services. Last year we saw the highest rise in HIV since 1987."

The Sunday Herald has also learned that three years ago a proposal by children's organisation Children In Scotland to set up a sexual health and relationships forum for young people, children's charities and health groups had agreement in principle from the Executive. The forum has been put on hold pending the publication of the sexual health strategy.

Dr Bronwen Cohen, chief executive of Children In Scotland, said: "We are very disappointed that the sexual health strategy has taken so long. This has been very frustrating for us."

A Children In Scotland source added: "The sexual health and relationships forum had agreement in principle. We thought it would have been helpful to have this forum up and running so that it could feed into the sexual health strategy."

Children In Scotland's sister organisation, the National Children's Bureau, has been running the Sex Education Forum in England for the last 15 years. Insiders at Children in Scotland believe the Section 28 debate over the promotion of homosexuality in schools was a major setback for the Scottish forum.

Deacon also blames the row over Section 28 for delaying the introduction of a robust sexual health policy in Scotland.

"Following devolution, a number of steps were taken to give sexual health a greater priority," she wrote in an article last summer.

"Then along came the Section 28 controversy, and the world changed. Suddenly, it seemed that anything with the vaguest whiff of young people and sex became the stuff of lurid tabloid headlines and a vitriolic campaign of opposition. For a period the window of opportunity closed and valuable momentum was lost.

"Since then, the Executive has continued to take forward a range of worthwhile policy initiatives on sexual health. But the hard truth is that changes to culture and practice on the scale required will not happen by stealth. Incremental shifts in policy and services will not achieve the step change that is needed," This weekend a senior NHS manager expressed regret that the strategy has been held up because it is "politically difficult".

"How many teenagers have had abortions or become parents while we are waiting for this strategy? This is making it difficult for us to develop sexual health and teenage pregnancy strategies locally," she said.

A health expert close to the strategy added: "The strategy has lagged behind. It is a general rule that policies that are difficult get kicked around the 'too difficult to deal with' tray while the debate goes on about what to do with them."

Every year there are around 9500 teenage pregnancies in Scotland. Of these, around 730 are girls aged between 13 and 15.

According to Professor Phil Hanlon, the former director of the Public Health Institute of Scotland, and chair of the expert group, the report has been in the hands of the Scottish Executive for several weeks.

However, a statement issued by the Executive said: "The expert group is in the final stages of its work on the strategy and ministers expect to see it shortly. The report will be published in full in the autumn."

Copyright 2003 SMG Sunday Newspapers Ltd.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.