Sexual Health Services

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

My noble friend makes an excellent point: we have cause for optimism not least because of the work that he, the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, and so many others have done. I mentioned the decline in diagnoses year on year. The UK has met the UN’s 90-90-90 ambition in every part of the country, including London. Having done that, which is a huge achievement, of course we should set our sights higher. I should be very happy to discuss with noble Lords exactly what our target should be. Clearly, a zero infection rate must be where we want to get to in the end.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, given the Minister’s Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, about the general population, does he agree that the over- representation of people from black and minority ethnic communities, with high incidences of HIV and late diagnosis, is a continuing problem that Public Health England has yet to address?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I agree with the noble Baroness that that is a continuing problem. Infection with certain diseases is disproportionately distributed. Testing and screening are not taking place uniformly among different groups. Public Health England published an action plan about a year ago on how to improve sexual health services and is trying to address that specific issue.