The decline of the pill as more women opt for jabs and implants

More than one in five women who attended a family planning clinic last year chose a long-acting method of birth control.

At the same time, the proportion of women using the Pill fell 2 per cent to 46 per cent, the independent Information Centre for health and social care said yesterday.

Its figures suggest more women are choosing to have hormone injections or implants lasting up to three months, rather than have to remember to take the Pill every day.

The figures are from the NHS Contraceptive Services England 2006/07 report, which looked at attendance at NHS community contraception clinics but did not include services provided by GPs or consultants at outpatient clinics.

Overall there was a fall in the number of visits during the year - down 4 per cent from 2.6 million to 2.5 million.

Notably, a fifth more men used the clinics compared with the previous year, although the vast majority of patients were women.

Almost one in ten of all girls aged 13-15 sought help at one of the clinics, the figures showed.

Some 80,000 of those seeking help were under 16 - the equivalent of 8.5 per cent of all 13 to 15-year-olds.

However, the total number of underage girls attending clinics is down from around 82,000 in 2004/05.

Some 21 per cent of female patients chose implants or injections, which slowly release the hormone progestogen into the bloodstream - up 3 per cent on 2003/04.

The report also revealed a fall in the number of women seeking the emergency 'morning-after pill' from clinics, reflecting its availability over the counter in pharmacies.

It was handed out on 160,000 occasions in 2006/07 - a 7 per cent fall on the previous year. Yesterday's figures also showed that the number of women going for smear tests is falling.

In 2006/07, 3.4million women of all ages in England were screened, a drop of 6.7 per cent from 2005/06.

More than 40,000 fewer women aged 20 to 24 went for screening last year.

Experts fear younger women are becoming complacent since two cervical cancer vaccines were approved.

The vaccines protect against the sexually-transmitted infection human papillomavirus, which causes around 70 per cent of cases of cervical cancer.

But it will be decades before women can safely forego regular screening and the jab does not protect against all strains of HPV.