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 improve sexual health outcomes for people aged 50 and over; and what guidance is issued to health professionals to improve sexual health outcomes for those people.

Public Health England’s (PHE) Health promotion for sexual and reproductive health and HIV strategic action plan, 2016 to 2019 aims to reduce health inequalities and achieve improvements in sexual and reproductive health and HIV prevention across the life course.

PHE uses scientific evidence, evaluation and community engagement to undertake activities to improve sexual health outcomes for people aged 50 and over. Targeted and universal health promotion approaches include the national sexual health information programme to improve the public and professional understanding of sexually transmitted infections and sexual wellbeing; the national HIV prevention programme; the HIV self-sampling service; the set of documents highlighting reproductive health as a public health issue for women from across the life course and the forthcoming action plan due to be published in March 2019.

Further information on targeted and universal health approaches across the life course is available at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/488090/SRHandHIVStrategicPlan_211215.pdf

Further information on reproductive health is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reproductive-health-what-women-say