Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Action 7 of the HIV Action Plan, what barriers his Department has identified to retention in care for people living with HIV; and what steps his Department is taking to tackle those barriers.

The HIV Action Plan is the cornerstone of our approach to drive forward progress and achieve our ambitions to end new human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmissions, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, and HIV-related deaths within England by 2030. The Plan is driven forward by an Implementation Steering Group (ISG) comprised by key delivery partners, including the voluntary and community sector. To help fulfil our commitments to optimise rapid access to treatment and retention in care, we are in the process of setting up a retention and re-engagement in care task and finish (T&F) group as a subgroup of the ISG. The T&F group is chaired by NHS England and will provide advice to the ISG on actions needed to increase the number of people retained and re-engaged in care and receiving effective treatment, including addressing barriers which prevent people from accessing services. The recommendations will be considered by the ISG who will agree how best to take it forward.