Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateCatherine West
Main Page: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)Department Debates - View all Catherine West's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(8 years, 5 months ago)
Commons Chamber15. What the timetable is for the launch of the public consultation on HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis for adults at high risk of contracting HIV.
NHS England will invest £2 million over the next two years in order to run, together with Public Health England, early implementer test sites which will seek to answer the remaining questions about how PrEP could be commissioned in the most cost-effective and integrated way to reduce the incidence of HIV and sexually transmitted infections for those at the highest risk.
Yesterday NHS England scrapped plans to fund PrEP. Is there anything that the Minister can do to end this erratic and inconsistent decision making? Does she agree that yesterday’s decision to abandon the roll-out of a game-changing drug totally failed those who are at risk of contracting HIV?
NHS England’s senior specialised commissioning management team made that decision, and I think NHS England recognises that it could have been made earlier. However, it is also recognised that NHS England has already done valuable work. Some important lessons have been learned, and we do not want to lose that. We must now work with both NHS England and Public Health England to understand how we can continue to learn from, for example, the test sites.