Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of (a) the level of access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for groups at highest risk for HIV infection and (b) whether the funding allocated to the PrEP roll-out in 2020-21 is sufficient to meet demand.

The Government provided £11 million ring-fenced funding to local authorities for routine commissioning of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in 2020/21, which has been assessed as meeting PrEP need this year. Routine commissioning of PrEP will benefit tens of thousands of people at highest risk of HIV infection and, along with other measures, will take us closer to our ambition of zero HIV transmissions by 2030.

Public Health England, in collaboration with stakeholders, is currently developing a monitoring and evaluation framework for the routine commissioning of PrEP. This will use established surveillance systems and include measures of PrEP need and use among key population groups to inform equitable delivery and access. These data will be published in routine sexually transmitted infection and human immunodeficiency virus surveillance outputs in 2021.