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It is difficult to comment on the progress that has been made since 2006 since 2006 is the most recent year we have figures for teenage conceptions; however a number of key actions have been implemented since 2007.

These include:

Overall, the rates in Newcastle are falling more slowly than nationally. Thus there are impacts in terms of terminations, ante and post-natal support and care, housing, employment and education.

To illustrate the potential were Newcastle to achieve the same rate of progress as other areas, TPIAG (2008) report that the teenage pregnancy rate is at its lowest for 20 years and falling in 89% of local authorities. They state that ‘if all areas achieved the same rate of progress the overall reductions in the rate would be 27%’.

The Teenage pregnancy ministerial meeting May 2008 highlighted urgent need in Newcastle to:

• improve senior local sponsorship and engagement of all key partners and to raise the profile of the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy in Newcastle;
• improve the provision of young people focused contraception/sexual health services;
• improve the strong delivery of SRE/PSHE by schools.

The barriers to successful delivery currently of these services were seen to include:

The Teenage Pregnancy Co-ordination Task Group and Teenage Pregnancy and Parenthood Partnership Board oversee all of the work of this strategy and ensure objectives of the strategy are met to ensure a reduction in Newcastle's Teenage Pregnancy rates.

Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) 

The Teenage Pregnancy and Parenthood Strategy is a ten-year national strategy set out in the Social Exclusion Report on Teenage Pregnancy (1999).  The teenage pregnancy reduction target is now a Public Service Agreement (PSA) jointly held by DfES and Department of Health (DH) and is also a national PSA target for Local Government.

A Teenage Pregnancy Strategy Development Day was held on 18 January 2008 for a mixture of practitioners and young people. One thing that was noted in the evaluation was the importance and value of young people being involved. Others suggestions included:

National

• Significant progress has been made nationally with the national teenage pregnancy rate the lowest it has been for 20 years.  The national teenage pregnancy rate dropped from 46.6 in 1998 to 40.4 in 2006. 
• The teenage pregnancy rate for the North East dropped from 56.5 in 1998 to 48.8 2006. (Performance Report no.1)

Newcastle upon Tyne

• Newcastle has a target of a 55% reduction in the under-18 conception rate by 2010, from the baseline year (1998) rate of 52.8 per 1000 females aged 15-17 to a rate of 23.8 (with an interim target of a 15% reduction by 2004 to a rate of 44.9) (Strategy Review, 2006).

This target is containined in the Newcastle Partnerships Local Area Agreement 2008 - 2011

Source; Office for national Statistics

The chart below shows the number of conceptions in each of the fist 3 Quarters of 2007 to be up on the same period last year.   The Teenage Pregnancy and Parenthood Partnership Board (TPPPB) is closely monitoring local data for 2007.