Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to ensure that (a) access to and (b) uptake of (i) PrEP and (ii) other HIV preventative measures is equitable across different groups.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
As part of our HIV Action Plan implementation, we are working together with key stakeholders to improve access to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention drug pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for key population groups. The HIV Action Plan Implementation Steering Group is working to develop a roadmap, based on the PrEP Access and Equity Task and Finish group’s recommendations, to help guide our efforts to ensure access, uptake, and use of PrEP meets the needs of groups most at risk of HIV.
HIV PrEP is routinely available in specialist sexual health services throughout the country since March 2020 and we invested more than £34 million in PrEP in 2020/21 and 2021/22. PrEP funding has been fully included within the public health grant since 2022/23 and funds appointments and testing in sexual health services, whilst NHS England covers the costs of the drug itself.
As part of the HIV Action Plan and our combination approach to HIV prevention, we are investing £3.5 million over 2021 to 2024 in HIV Prevention England, a national HIV prevention programme targeting key population groups with a high burden of HIV. NHS England has committed £20 million, 2022 to 2025, to fund the expansion of HIV opt-out testing in emergency departments in areas with extremely high HIV prevalence, which has helped find more than 550 cases of undiagnosed or untreated HIV in the first year of the programme. Treatment as prevention is a key HIV prevention measure and treatment coverage in England remained high in 2021 at 99% and was consistent across all groups.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to increase the availability of HIV testing.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Local authorities in England are responsible for commissioning open access sexual and reproductive health services, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing, through the Public Health Grant, funded at £3.5 billion in 2023/24. It is for individual local authorities to decide their spending priorities based on an assessment of local need and to commission the service lines that best suit their population.
Increasing the availability of HIV testing is one of our core ambitions in the Government’s HIV Action plan published in December 2021. As part of the plan, the Department is investing over £3.5 million from 2021 to 2024 to deliver the National HIV Prevention Programme. This includes national campaigns such as the National HIV Testing Week (NHTW) and the Summer Campaign designed to normalise and reduce barriers to testing, such as stigma. In 2023 the NHTW delivered more than 20,000 HIV testing kits targeted at the most affected communities.
NHS England has committed £20 million, between 2022 to 2025, to fund the expansion of HIV opt-out testing in emergency departments in areas with extremely high HIV prevalence. This has helped diagnose 2,000 new cases of blood-borne viruses (Hepatitis B and C as well as HIV) in the first year of the programme. We will be considering the data recently released alongside the data on progress towards our ambitions to end new HIV transmissions within England by 2030 to examine the feasibility of further expanding this programme.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to increase the availability of HIV (a) treatments and (b) retention in care settings.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Improving Treatment and retention in care, as well as quality of life for and reducing the stigma faced by people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are objectives in the Government’s HIV Action plan published in December 2021.
NHS England are currently reviewing the national Service Specification for Adult HIV services, which sets out the standards of care that HIV providers are expected to meet, including availability of community, psychological and psychosocial support for patients to improve the quality of life of people living with HIV.
As part of the HIV Action Plan Steering Group, a re-engagement and retention in care task and finish group was established in 2023. This group will provide advice on increasing the number of people retained and re-engaged in care and receiving effective treatment. They will present their recommendations to the HIV Action Plan Implementation Steering Group, who will agree on how the advice will be taken forward.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to (a) improve quality of life for and (b) reduce the stigma faced by people living with HIV.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Improving Treatment and retention in care, as well as quality of life for and reducing the stigma faced by people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are objectives in the Government’s HIV Action plan published in December 2021.
NHS England are currently reviewing the national Service Specification for Adult HIV services, which sets out the standards of care that HIV providers are expected to meet, including availability of community, psychological and psychosocial support for patients to improve the quality of life of people living with HIV.
As part of the HIV Action Plan Steering Group, a re-engagement and retention in care task and finish group was established in 2023. This group will provide advice on increasing the number of people retained and re-engaged in care and receiving effective treatment. They will present their recommendations to the HIV Action Plan Implementation Steering Group, who will agree on how the advice will be taken forward.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to provide Descovy as a HIV prevention drug.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The updated NHS England clinical commissioning policy establishes the use of generic and second line pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for human immunodeficiency virus prevention, including emtricitabine and tenofovir alafenamide (Descovy®) as a second line treatment option for individuals who meet the inclusion criteria and cannot take the usual first-line PrEP therapy due to risk factors.
The commissioning policy was published on 22 May 2023 and is available at the following link:
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with the Scottish Government on potential joint working to help reach zero HIV transmissions by 2030.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Health is a devolved matter, though officials at the Department continue to meet with counterparts from Scotland and Wales to share information to help end new HIV transmissions by 2030.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with the Welsh Government on potential joint working to reach zero HIV transmissions by 2030.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Health is a devolved matter, though officials at the Department continue to meet with counterparts from Scotland and Wales to share information to help end new HIV transmissions by 2030.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has had recent discussions with the (a) Welsh, (b) Scottish and (c) Northern Irish governments on taking steps to introduce a UK-wide HIV testing week.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
No discussions have taken placed around introducing a United Kingdom wide HIV testing week.
Health is a devolved matter and it is the responsibility of individual Governments to commission comprehensive healthcare based on population need.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing an HIV testing week.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The HIV Action Plan 2022/25 for England includes a commitment to deliver National HIV Testing Week in England, an annual campaign which increases awareness and acceptability of HIV testing and aims to reduce barriers to access.
HIV Prevention England operates the annual National HIV Testing week campaign, on behalf of the Department, which is taking place between 6 February and 12 February 2023.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding his Department has provided for public health campaigns on HIV for heterosexual (a) women and (b) men in each year since 2018.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
HIV Prevention England (HPE) is the national HIV prevention programme for England and is funded by the Department. The programme aims to support communities who are disproportionately affected by HIV, including gay, bisexual and men who have sex with men and Black African heterosexual men and women. The Department has appointed Terrence Higgins Trust, a national charity who provide services related to sexual heath and HIV, to deliver the programme from 2021/2024. HPE delivers a nationally co-ordinated programme of HIV prevention work, including public campaigns such as National HIV Testing Week, that is designed to complement locally commissioned prevention activities in areas of high HIV prevalence.
The table below shows the funding that has been provided specifically for HIV public health campaigns within the HPE contract:
2018-19 | £484,800 |
2019-20 | £442,000 |
2020-21 | £524,000 |
2021-22 | £500,000 |
2022-23 | £500,000 |
The Department does not provide funding for separate national HIV public health campaigns specifically targeted at women or the black community or heterosexual women and men.