British women can now be sterilised in their lunch hour, after a clinic launched a new, walk in, walk out 10 minute fertility service.

The Cadogan Clinic is now offering women the opportunity to be sterilised during their lunch break; female patients can drop into the clinic and undergo the Essure procedure, which involves blocking the fallopian tubes; it takes just ten minutes and patients are left with no visible scars.

The technique has been used by the NHS for many years but this is the first time that it is available to women at a time that is convenient to them; there are also no waiting lists. The treatment is available at a cost of £2,700.

Gynaecologist Martin Farrugia, said that the treatment enabled women to choose when they want to have the treatment and enabled them to get it done quickly without having to join a waiting list.

Some experts however do not have such a favourable view of the treatment and claim that the clinic has encouraged women to think about their fertility in a flippant and somewhat secretive manner; women could go to the clinic and have the treatment without their partner even knowing about it and this has worried some specialists, including Dr Allan Pacey, a fertility specialist from the University of Sheffield. Dr Pacey accepts that women must have control over their fertility but claims that they must discuss such serious matters with their partner, rather than sloping off to a clinic for a quick-fix sterilisation.