Pharmacies supplied almost 305,000 free morning-after pill doses in the first five months of England’s expanded contraception service.

The emergency contraception was provided between October 2025 and March 2026 without women needing to book an appointment with a GP or sexual health clinic, new NHS figures show.

The service launched in October 2025 and, by March 2026, 9,958 of 10,398 community and online pharmacies had opted to provide it, representing 95.8 per cent.

It provides access to emergency contraception as well as support for women starting or continuing the contraceptive pill.

NHS England said the service makes ongoing and emergency contraception easier and more convenient to access, with around four in five people in England living within a 20-minute walk of a community pharmacy.

Dr Sue Mann, NHS national clinical director for women’s health, said: “Making the emergency contraceptive pill free through NHS pharmacies was a major step forward for women’s health, giving women quicker and easier access to emergency contraception exactly when they need it, with no appointment, no waiting and no judgement.

“This service is already making a real impact, particularly for women living in more deprived communities, by making contraception easier to access closer to home.

“Crucially, this isn’t just about emergency contraception, community pharmacies can also help women start or continue the contraceptive pill, meaning they can leave with a longer-term plan, not just a one-off solution.”

Since February 2024, pharmacies have also carried out more than 1.2m consultations for women continuing to use the oral contraceptive pill, alongside a further 192,000 consultations for women starting it.

Oral contraception refers to hormone-containing tablets taken regularly to prevent pregnancy.

Henry Gregg, chief executive of the National Pharmacy Association, said: “Pharmacies are proud to be delivering this vital programme which has helped hundreds of thousands of women access the support they need with their contraception free of charge and on their doorsteps.”

He added: “Pharmacies have the potential to be delivering many more NHS services for their patients than they currently do.

“With the right levels of funding support and ambition, pharmacies can help deliver the government’s ambitions to provide more care closer to people’s homes.”

A 20-year study of 66,892 postmenopausal women linked the Planetary Health Diet to lower cardiovascular disease risk.

Women whose eating habits most closely followed the diet had around a 28 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular disease than those in the lowest-adherence group.

Even moderate adherence to the diet was linked with a lower risk.

Donya Shahamati is a doctoral student in public health at the University of California, Irvine.

The researcher said: “Our results suggest that people may not need to follow a perfect or very restrictive diet to see potential heart-health benefits.

“This is especially important for postmenopausal women, because cardiovascular risk increases with age and tends to rise after menopause.”

The diet emphasises fruit, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and unsaturated fats, while limiting red and processed meats, added sugars, refined grains and saturated fats.

Postmenopausal women are those who have gone through menopause, when periods stop and hormone levels change.

Cardiovascular risk tends to increase with age and rise after menopause.

“Moving towards a more plant-forward, higher-quality diet can be accomplished through small, realistic changes,” said Shahamati.

“These changes might include filling half the plate with vegetables more often; using avocado or olive oil in place of butter; choosing oatmeal or whole-grain cereal for breakfast; or trying a meatless meal once per week.”

For the research, investigators followed 66,892 participants in the Women’s Health Initiative, a long-term national health study funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health.

All the women included in the analysis were free from cardiovascular disease at the start of the study, between 1994 and 1998, and had complete information about their diet and other important health and lifestyle factors.

Researchers used information collected through a food frequency questionnaire at the start of the study to calculate a Planetary Health Diet Index score for each participant. Higher scores indicated that a participant’s diet was more closely aligned with the Planetary Health Diet.

They then divided the women into five groups according to how closely their diets followed it.

The women were around 63 years old at the start of the study and were followed for about 20 years to see who developed cardiovascular disease.

When analysing the data, researchers adjusted for factors that could affect cardiovascular risk, including age, race and ethnicity, education, income, smoking, alcohol intake, physical activity, body mass index and total calorie intake.

“We did not only look at overall cardiovascular disease,” said Shahamati.

“We also looked separately at coronary heart disease, stroke and heart failure. This helped us see whether the pattern was similar across different types of cardiovascular outcomes.”

Overall, women whose diets were most closely aligned with the Planetary Health Diet had the lowest risk of cardiovascular disease.

They also had a lower risk of coronary heart disease, heart failure and stroke than women in the lowest-adherence group.

Moderate adherence was also associated with a lower risk, with each 10-point increase in the Planetary Health Diet Index score linked to a further reduction.

The researchers cautioned that, because the study was observational, it could not show that the diet directly caused the lower risk among women.

Observational studies identify links between factors such as diet and disease risk, but cannot prove that one caused the other.

The research team is now exploring other aspects of diet and health among older adults, including how diet quality changes over time.

The researchers said this information could help support healthy ageing and prevent chronic diseases.

Yoga and omega-3 supplements may be as effective as talking therapies for pregnancy depression, a major review suggests.

Globally, nearly one in three pregnant women experience depression, but most receive no treatment.

When support is available, women are often directed towards talking therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT, and mindfulness.

CBT is a structured talking therapy that helps people identify and change patterns of thought and behaviour affecting their mental health.

The review examined 115 clinical trials involving more than 12,000 participants across 30 countries.

It found that yoga, massage, omega-3 supplements and bright light therapy were broadly as effective as talking therapies at reducing depression symptoms during pregnancy.

Bright light therapy involves controlled exposure to bright light and is sometimes used to treat mood conditions.

The findings point to the importance of social support and increased connection, as all these approaches offer some element of contact or guided support.

Led by King’s College London, the research brought together trial evidence across every type and format of treatment for antenatal depression under a common framework.

Antenatal depression is depression that occurs during pregnancy.

The study was conducted as part of HappyMums, a European consortium led by the University of Milan that aims to improve mental health support during pregnancy and after birth.

Carmine Pariante, professor of biological psychiatry, said: “This is the most comprehensive analysis of treatments for depression in pregnancy ever conducted, and the findings should prompt a rethink of how we support women during this critical period.

“The evidence is clear that there is no single best approach. What matters is that women have access to a range of options, and that clinicians feel equipped to offer them.”

The researchers said yoga and omega-3 supplements could be legitimate treatment options, rather than stopgaps, for women on waiting lists or those who struggle to access mental health support.

However, the studies differed considerably in design, sample size and how results were measured, so the findings should be interpreted with care.

The team said non-psychological approaches could help women cope with long waits for care without ruling out other treatments alongside them.

Digital and online interventions, including apps and telephone-based support, were also found to be as effective as face-to-face treatment.

Researchers said this could affect how antenatal depression is managed, particularly for women who cannot travel or face long waits for in-person care.

The team found no randomised controlled trials of pharmaceutical treatments for antenatal depression, despite antidepressants being widely prescribed for depression outside pregnancy.

A randomised controlled trial is a study in which participants are randomly assigned to different treatment groups, allowing researchers to compare outcomes more fairly.

Evidence for drug treatment during pregnancy therefore relies on indirect research rather than trials carried out during pregnancy, reflecting long-standing caution around testing medicines in pregnant populations.

NICE guidelines recommend antidepressants for moderate to severe depression in pregnancy, while evidence from outside formal pregnancy trials suggests they can be safe and effective.

However, the researchers said trials are still needed, particularly for women who cannot access or engage with other forms of support.

Riddhi Laijawala, trial manager and PhD student, said: “Depression in pregnancy is common, but it is not inevitable, and it is treatable. What this review shows is that the options available to women are broader than many people realise.

“A yoga class, music therapy, or an online programme may not sound like clinical treatment, but the evidence suggests they can make a real difference, and for many women they may be easier (and quicker) to access than a course of therapy.”

Depression during pregnancy affects an estimated 28.5 per cent of pregnant people worldwide, but only around one in five receives appropriate and timely treatment.

The team said closing this treatment gap should be a priority for health systems because the condition can affect both parent and child.

The HappyMums project is supported by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.