Sexual health: Youth service key to lowering teen pregnancy

Teenage Pregnancy Next Steps: Guidance for Local Authorities and Primary Care Trusts on Effective Delivery of Local Strategies, a non-statutory guidance document issued by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) last week, lays out the Government's latest approach to tackling teenage pregnancy in a bid to meet its 2010 target to halve the teenage conception rate. It highlights a wide regional variation in teenage pregnancy figures, with "hot spots" in almost every local authority in England, and sets out an action plan for London, the region that has made the least progress in cutting teenage pregnancies. Work led by the Government Office for London will target disadvantaged young women in schools, train professionals and provide more culturally appropriate services.