CONTRACEPTION AND ABORTION services provider, Marie Stopes, has suspended surgical abortions for girls under 18 and vulnerable women after safety concerns were raised.

The suspension of services comes after health inspectors from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in the UK raised patient safety concerns.

It has suspended termination of pregnancy provision for under-18s and vulnerable groups of women as well as terminations under general anaesthetic or conscious sedation.

All surgical terminations have now been suspended at its Norwich centre.

Other services remain unaffected and are operating as usual, said the group.

Voluntarily suspended

In a statement, Marie Stopes International (MSI) said it has agreed with the CQC to voluntarily suspend some of its termination of pregnancy services.

Those impacted by the cessation of services will now be transferred to other providers.

Marie Stopes UK said the suspension of services will allow the group to resolve areas of concern in its training and governance procedures.

We are working urgently with the CQC on these areas and intend to regain full assurance within a few days.

It said its immediate priority is to make sure that women booked into one of the affected services are rebooked swiftly into alternative local services.

It said it is working closely with the National Health Service in England to ensure this happens.

The statement continued:

“We’d like to reassure people that our other services remain unaffected. Each year 70,000 women are treated within our centres, and our clinical outcomes continue to outperform the national average.”

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