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 implications for his policies of rises in the number of diagnoses of sexually transmitted infections.

We are committed to improving sexual heath in England, including tackling sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and are considering the next steps for delivering the best outcomes, but no specific assessment has been made of our policies and the increase in STIs.

Sexual health services (SHSs) play a key public health role in diagnosis, early treatment and management of STIs and we are providing more than £3.5 billion to local authorities through the public health grant to fund public health services, including SHSs, in this financial year. Individual local authorities are responsible for and well placed to make funding and commissioning decisions about the SHSs that best meet the needs of their local populations.

As part of the HIV Action Plan, we are investing over £3.5 million from 2021 to 2024 to deliver the National HIV Prevention Programme for England, including HIV Testing Week and other campaigns to improve information and testing for HIV and other STIs.

The UK Health Security Agency published a Syphilis Action Plan to address the increase in syphilis diagnosis in England, focusing on key interventions such as targeted testing, partner notification and awareness raising.