Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure there is equal access to Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis across the country.

The HIV prevention drug pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is routinely available in specialist sexual health services throughout the country since March 2020 and we invested more than £34 million in PrEP in 2020/21 and 2021/22. PrEP funding has been fully included within the public health grant since 2022/23 and funds appointments and testing in sexual health services, whilst NHS England covers the costs of the drug itself.

As part of our HIV Action Plan implementation, we are working together with key stakeholders to improve access and equity to HIV PrEP for key population groups. The HIV Action Plan Implementation Steering Group is working to develop a roadmap, based on the PrEP Access and Equity Task and Finish group’s recommendations, to help guide our efforts to improve equitable access to PrEP for key populations, including in settings other than specialist sexual health services. We will consider our response to the recommendations in due course.