Baroness Barker
Main Page: Baroness Barker (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Baroness Hyde of Bemerton (Lab)
I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, for all his work in this area. The HIV action plan committed £9 million over three years to establish that first retention and re-engagement initiative. It is a core part of the plan and is intended to support people diagnosed with HIV who, as the noble Lord said, are not currently retained in specialist care, and to help people re-engage where perhaps they have fallen out, and to restart effective treatment and achieve viral suppression. It will amplify existing work within local services and partner with the voluntary and community sector and industry to increase the number of patients who are re-engaged in their care. Detailed plans for that national retention and re-engagement initiative will be set out in due course.
Baroness Barker (LD)
The testing programme in A&E, which was initially funded by the Elton John AIDS Foundation, has been extraordinarily successful, finding all sorts of people, including an 86 year-old woman who was completely unaware of her status. Will the Government commit to continuing the funding after the initial period that has been agreed? Will they also look at how we can expand testing to areas other than high-incidence areas, as it is limited to at the moment?
Baroness Hyde of Bemerton (Lab)
The noble Baroness is right to draw attention to the success of opt-out testing. The Government are pleased that this continues to be a very important plank of HIV detection and future prevention. As with everything, we look forward to the 2027 spending review. I will write in more detail to the noble Baroness on the rest of her question.