Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will provide additional (a) funding and (b) guidance to sexual health clinics for preparing for future outbreaks.

Sexual health services (SHS) are funded through the public health grant. It is for individual local authorities to decide their spending priorities based on an assessment of local need, including the need for sexual health services taking account of their statutory duties.

The UK Health Security Agency has published guidance designed to help healthcare providers, including sexual health clinics, to manage sexually transmitted infection (STI) outbreaks. This guidance provides advice on how to detect, investigate and control outbreaks of STIs, and is available at the following link:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/sexually-transmitted-infections-stis-managing-outbreaks

In March 2023 the Department published an integrated SHS service specification for use by local authorities, which describes the role of sexual health services in managing outbreaks and is available at the following link:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-health-services-non-mandatory-contracts-and-guidance-published