One of those people is Dr Jayne Kavanagh, who led the campaign. She told me she believes the decision to re-locate the centre’s services “definitely” signals a trend in the gradual dismantling of systems of support across the country. She firmly agreed that,“Sexual and reproductive health services are being downgraded and even disappearing altogether as a direct consequence of central governments cuts to the public health budget.” On top of that, the Conservatives are pushing to move sexual health commissioning from the NHS to local authorities, which puts services at the mercy of local government as opposed to informed medical professionals. Ideological austerity is fucking us, and it too is refusing to pay for the morning after pill.As fun as it is to reel off a sentence like that though, the actual consequences of limiting accessibility are not quite so snappy. Not to freak you out (though it should) but diagnoses of gonorrhoea have gone up 100% over the last five years, according The Guardian . Syphilis has seen a slightly less but still notable rise of over 50% and everyone’s favourite, herpes, is up too. This is frightening because really, what was that lump? On top of those fun statistics is an additional concern that the more expensive, long-term forms of contraception like the coil or the implant won’t be so swiftly re-prescribed. Chris Wilkinson, president of the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Health, told The Guardian that he anticipates a rise in unplanned pregnancies as a result The Save MPC campaign has been quick to remind the public that every £1 spent on contraception saves the NHS £12.50 in the long run, but that kind of forward thinking seems to be of little use to our government. As centres across the country strive to modernise sexual healthcare services to a global standard, where we can wake up to a text message giving us the all clear or walk in to one place for comprehensive testing, the government’s lack of support belies an inherent disinterest in the political ramifications of social care and the NHS as a wider institution.Emily Butler, one of the dedicated service users from the Save MPC campaign, who has kept me in the loop since the closure was announced, sees this as the start of many changes to how this country is able to provide sexual healthcare. “Having a place of specific expertise in contraception and sexual health doesn’t fit in with the government’s ideas,” she explains, outlining a “transformative” plan they’re set to release in September which will restructure sexual healthcare clinics into one-stop-shops specialising in everything.While that sounds like what we have already, in terms of research, it’s not at all. “They’re saying that the research teams [on a newly combined site] can work together and that if you pool the numbers, you have more people, which is surely better. But you’re talking about people who are working in completely different areas. This way, you’re going to lose expertise that has taken nearly five decades to build up.”