Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the key emerging data is from the emergency department opt out testing for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C; and how that data will inform the future development of the scheme.

In the first 100 days of opt out testing over 250,000 HIV tests and over 100,000 hepatitis C virus antibody tests were delivered from April to July 2022. This testing resulted in identification of more than 500 people with a previously unknown (unrecognised or undiagnosed) blood borne virus. The full report can be found at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/emergency-department-opt-out-testing-for-hiv-hepatitis-b-and-hepatitis-c-the-first-100-days/

NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency will publish reports evaluating the impact of the first year of opt-out HIV and blood borne virus testing in 2023. We will consider all the evidence from the first year of opt-out testing alongside the data on progress towards our ambitions to end new HIV transmissions and AIDS- and HIV-related deaths within England by 2030 when examining the feasibility for further expansion of this programme.

We will be sharing evidence as it emerges to support other areas to make the case locally for implementing the same approach in other areas of the country.