Records of the Joint Committee on Contraception of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and Royal College of General Practitioners

Papers of the Joint Committee on Contraception relating to training of practitioners in family planning, including correspondence, guidelines, administrative material relating to the issue of certificates, meeting papers, and records of conferences.

This collection consists of the following:

RCOG/J1 - Papers relating to training of doctors in family planning, including correspondence, investigations, guidelines and other records, 1971-1993

RCOG/J2 - Records relating to the administration of JCC certificates, 1955-1989

RCOG/J3 - Records relating to JCC financial matters, 1976-1983

RCOG/J4 - Sub-committees and working parties of the JCC, 1977-1990

RCOG/J5 - Records relating to JCC conferences, 1978-1992

RCOG/J6 - Correspondence between the JCC and other bodies, 1972-1984

RCOG/J7 - Minutes and papers of meetings of the JCC, 1972-1993

RCOG/J8 - JCC joint certificates index book, 1975-1976

RCOG/J9 - Records of the Sub-committee on Family Planning and Committee on Contraception and Family Planning, 1971-1972

RCOG/J10 - Correspondence and papers of the JCC relating to the Family Planning Association, 1973-1986

RCOG/J11 - Papers of the JCC Sub-committee on Computerisation, 1983-1992

The mission of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is to set standards to improve women's health and the clinical practice of obstetrics and gynaecology both in the UK and across the world. One of the principal means of achieving this aim is through the College's provision of education, training, assessment and professional development.

In 1971 the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists established a Family Planning Sub-committee to discuss proposals for the RCOG, together with the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), to issue a joint certificate of training in family planning based on assessment in family planning clinics. It was agreed that those doctors already recognised by the Family Planning Association (FPA) should be accepted under the new scheme, and that the FPA should be represented on the committee. The committee was superseded in 1972 by the RCOG/RCGP Committee on Contraception and Family Planning.

In April 1973 it was decided that the committee should be renamed the Joint Committee on Contraception of the RCOG and RCGP, normally abbreviated as the Joint Committee on Contraception (JCC). The personnel of the committee remained unchanged, being dominated by representatives of the two eponymous royal colleges, with representatives from the FPA and the Society of Community Medicine. In December 1974 the RCOG agreed to take over the secretarial work for the JCC and office space was allotted for this purpose.

In 1993 the JCC was superseded by the Faculty of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care (FFPRHC) which continued its work of granting diplomas, certificates and fellowships in recognition of specialist knowledge and skills in family planning and reproductive health care. It also promoted conferences and lectures, provided members with an advisory service and published The Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care. In 2007 it was renamed the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

The natural arrangement of files and series is retained where possible.

Permission is required from College senior management for external access to College records less than twenty years old: all other records are open by appointment, Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm. Email: archives@rcog.org.uk

Internal transfers from the Joint Committee on Contraception.

Details of contents of parts of the collection are available on request. Email archives@rcog.org.uk

Details of some parts of the collection are available through the AIM25 network: please note that these are not current or updated descriptions and all enquiries should be made to the College Archivist.

Care is required in the handling of all volumes.

Record description compiled by Penny Bonning, Archivist, in May 2011.

Photocopies are available at the discretion of the College Archivist.

Copyright lies with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and permission to reproduce material should be sought via the College Archivist.

Duplicate and routine administrative material is removed where applicable by the College Archivist.

Prior to 1998, records were transferred to the Archive by the JCC: in 1998 the FFPRHC quitted its premises in the RCOG, taking with it some records which had previously been held in the College Archive (namely, indices to FPA certificate holders) and giving permission for the destruction of other records of no historical value.

No further additions to this collection are expected..

Most of the records of the FPA inherited by the JCC were transferred from the RCOG to the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine between 1985 and 1988 (SA/FPA). The Wellcome Institute also holds other records of the FPA transferred directly by the Association.

Other records held at the RCOG relating to the JCC may be found among the minute books of the Family Planning Sub-Committee at RCOG/T17; annual audited accounts of the JCC are held at RCOG/F32; and records of an RCOG sub-committee to consider its future attitude to contraception and the JCC are held at RCOG/M8.