Young people and sexual health

Healthwatch Blackpool gained insight from young people to understand views and experiences of accessing local sexual health services. Through an online survey and subsequent focus group, Healthwatch Blackpool engaged with 142 young people.

Key Messages and Recommendations:

• 40% of the young people we spoke to used sexual health services. Raising awareness of local sexual health services would be beneficial to increase access for young people. This could be done through outreach work within educational settings, incorporating local sexual health services into the sex education curriculum and informing educational professionals of the support available locally for young people.
• The most frequently accessed service was Connect.
• Contraception and combined contraception and sexual health screening were the most common reasons for young people visiting services.
• Young people rated their experience of accessing sexual health services as high.
• Young people who did access sexual health services noted a preference for weekends, afternoon appointments or appointments after educational hours. Extending opening times on Mondays and Wednesdays could help to accommodate for those visiting after school or college. In addition, extending opening times on Saturdays could increase accessibility for those young people who may struggle to visit midweek.
• Young people lacked awareness in relation to insight and understanding on sexual health information. 57% of young people were aware that sexual health services offer support for HIV and PrEP, however, 88% did not know that you can call 0300 1234 154 for emergency contraception. Incorporating this into outreach work within educational settings would allow young people to gain a greater understanding of what is available to them.
• Young people most commonly accessed condoms via the supermarket. Reasons for this included convenience and easy access. Within educational sessions, informing young people where condoms are available for free locally could help encourage safe sex and could offer a free alternative for those individual’s buying from the supermarket.
• 51% of young people were unaware that postal STI kits are available to local residents free of charge. Raising awareness that postal STI kits are available to local residents would be extremely beneficial for young people.
• 32% of young people stated they would feel uncomfortable with a postal STI kit being sent to their home address. 39% of young people stated they would feel more comfortable collecting an STI kit from sexual health services to be completed at home. Piloting a provision within sexual health services whereby STI kits could be collected from local services would enable access for those individual’s who may not currently feel comfortable utilising this service.
• Incorporating accurate information relating to gay and lesbian sex, self-esteem after intercourse, the risk of pregnancy and information relating to consent via outreach sessions or within sexual health education in school would be useful.
• Positive feedback relating to sexual health services focused largely on staff manner and attitude, followed by the advice and guidance received.
• Suggested areas for improvement focused on raising awareness of what sexual health services offer and how people can access them. In addition, increasing the accessibility and availability of local sexual health services was suggested, with the majority of responses being centred on opening times.