Health: HIV Strategy for England

Lord May of Oxford Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the new commissioning arrangements will allow each commissioning organisation to play to its strengths and will mean better services for patients. Local authorities will be able to link sexual health provision into other public health provision and other services such as family support and social care. HIV treatment is complex, specialist and expensive. That is why the NHS Commissioning Board will commission the NHS to provide treatment. During the White Paper consultation there was wide support for that. The key will be for local health and well-being boards and Public Health England to have a role in supporting integration at a local level to make sure that the commissioning of services is joined up in all parts of the country.

[Lord May of Oxford]

My Lords, the Minister will undoubtedly be familiar with the relatively recent and very thoughtful Select Committee report from this House urging specific measures aimed at reversing the regrettable rise in the incidence of new infections of HIV. Already one of those measures has been mentioned; not all of them are highly technical. Some of them address the fact that, in several studies, young people today show themselves to be much less well informed about sexually transmitted infection than in the past. Could the Minister assure me that these underlying problems outlined in that report will be taken account of in the proposed cross-departmental strategy and if not, why not?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right to draw attention to the need for targeted prevention messages in this area. Following a competitive tender last year my department awarded the Terrence Higgins Trust a contract worth £6.7 million for three years. Known as HIV Prevention England, the programme targets gay men and African communities, the groups that remain the most at risk of HIV in the UK. That work includes promoting HIV testing through the Think HIV campaign; primary prevention messages, which we must get to the right audiences; and developing the evidence base on what works in HIV prevention. That DoH programme, I emphasise, is in addition to work funded by the NHS and local authorities.