Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of extending opt out HIV testing to areas of high prevalence as defined by the UK Health Security Agency.

Provisional data from NHS England indicates that the HIV opt-out testing programme has helped find more than 550 cases of undiagnosed or untreated HIV during its first year. We are currently assessing all the evidence from the results of the programme's first year and its contribution to finding cases of undiagnosed or untreated HIV and preventing further HIV transmissions, alongside data on progress towards our ambitions to end new HIV transmissions, AIDS and HIV-related deaths within England by 2030.

This data will be used to examine the feasibility of further expanding the programme and we will be sharing evidence as it emerges to support other areas of the country to make the case for implementing the same approach locally. A decision will be made in due course.