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 help ensure that healthcare providers are trained in gender-sensitive and culturally competent care for women seeking HIV-related services.

The Department has no current plans to provide healthcare providers with training in gender-sensitive and culturally competent care for women seeking HIV services. Individual employers providing HIV care are responsible for ensuring their staff are trained and competent to carry out their role.

The standard of training for health care professionals is the responsibility of respective independent statutory regulatory bodies who set the outcome standards expected at undergraduate level and approve courses. It is the responsibility of higher education institutions to write and teach the curricula content that enables their students to meet the regulators’ outcome standards.