What is the Faculty?

What is the Faculty?

It is a faculty of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists established on the 26th March 1993 as the Faculty of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care. In 2007 the organisation changed its name to the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare as this was more relevant to the current functions of the specialty.

The Faculty grants diplomas, certificates, fellowships and equivalent recognition of specialist knowledge and skills in sexual and reproductive health care.

As a body it promotes conferences and lectures, provides an clinical advisory service and publishes the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care.

Why a Faculty?

Over the past three decades sexual and reproductive health care has developed and evolved with its own professional criteria, skills and requirements for continuing education and recognition. It was recognised that there was a need for an educational body to:

1. Give academic status to the discipline of sexual and reproductive health care and recognise the expertise within it.
2. Maintain and develop standards of care and training and ensure that a high quality of practice is maintained by all providers of sexual and reproductive health care.
3. Promote the effective interaction of reproductive health care with related disciplines.
4. To gather, collate and provide information in support of basic and continuing education in the discipline.
5. To advance medical knowledge in the discipline and encourage audit and research.
6. To support and represent those working in the discipline at regional, national and international levels.