Safe, but at what price?

Doctors Advocate More Free Condom Outlets

The doctors' organisation, the British Medical Association (BMA), suggests that the condoms could be distributed from high street chemists.

Most people buy condoms either from pharmacists or from pub vending machines - paying typically about £2.50 for a packet of three.

The BMA, in evidence to a government review on the prescribing of medicines, points out that as the Department of Health has long urged people to use condoms to protect themselves against unwanted pregnancies and against sexual diseases like HIV and syphilis, providing them free would make sense.

The Family Planning Association supports the idea. It said that men often felt uncomfortable asking for free contraceptives at family planning clinics or doctors' surgeries.

"There is evidence that teenagers do not want to go to GP surgeries to get contraceptive advice, and men don't like going to family planning clinics," a spokesman said. "Pharmacies are accessible and much less threatening."

The spokesman said the additional cost had to be considered against the enormous cost to the NHS of unwanted pregnancies.

It is estimated that 160m condoms were bought in the UK last year at a cost of £53m.

A spokesman for the Department of Health says while awaiting the outcome of the review, providing free condoms may raise difficult issues to do with cost and family planning.

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