Under 16s in the UK will be available to pre-order the morning after pill under new NHS guidelines, despite concerns from the Government and others that it will encourage promiscuity.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the guidance for GPs and chemists says that under 25s – including girls under 16 – should be able obtain the morning after pill in advance of having sexual intercourse.

It had previously not been common practice for the morning after pill to be handed out in advance, but the new guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) authorise its distribution in cases where those seeking the morning after pill are using methods of contraception, such as condoms or the Pill, which can be subject to user failure.

The guidelines also allow school nurses and pharmacists to dispense “emergency contraception” for free, and suggest that free condoms should be “readily accessible in places such as “schools, colleges, and youth clubs.”

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt had previously opposed making the morning-after pill more freely available on the grounds that it might “encourage promiscuity”. NICE claims that “the evidence shows that advance provision of oral emergency contraception does not encourage risky behvaviour among young people.”

But many studies, including one by Prof. David Paton, find that making the morning after pill more available has little to no effect on teenage pregnancy rates, and can in fact increase the incidence of sexually transmitted infections as people engage in more risky behaviour.