HIV Prevention Services: Public Health Funding

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

First, I pay tribute to the work of the Terrence Higgins Trust and its leadership in this area in making progress in the UK in dealing with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The delivery of open access to sexual health services is mandated for all local authorities, which are funded to do so by the public health grant. It is incredibly important to point out that over the last four years there has been a 500,000 increase in the number of attendances at sexual health clinics, and more testing and treatment is taking place. That is starting to show in the reduced number of diagnoses, as well as in other factors. It should also be pointed out that as regards looking after those suffering from the consequences of HIV/AIDS, the Care Act 2014 is extremely clear that the legal framework for social care applies to adults, including those who live with HIV.

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, very large populations of gay men live in metropolitan areas such as London and Manchester, but my question is about the far-flung corners of the country: the north-east, the north-west and the south-west. Can the Government be confident that young men are able to access services and have PrEP available in those sorts of areas?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness is quite right to point out the difference. If you look at the performance in London against the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets, you will see that they have been met. However, England as a whole is at least slightly behind on at least one of those factors—people with HIV not being diagnosed—which points to the fact that out of metropolitan areas there is more work to do, as she says. One of the ways in which local authorities meet that challenge is through offering home testing kits, which are being sent out and which are now seeing the kind of return and diagnoses levels that you would see in sexual health clinics.