Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will provide (a) funding and (b) resources to support a year-round online (i) HIV and (ii) STI postal testing service.

Scaling up HIV testing for all population groups will be a key objective of the new HIV Action Plan, which is due to be published in summer 2025. We are currently working together with the UK Health Security Agency, NHS England, and other key stakeholders and considering which testing interventions would be best suited to achieve our ambitions, including the most effective role for online testing.

On 28 November 2024, the Prime Minister confirmed £27 million of additional funding for 2025/26 to expand the highly successful National Health Service emergency department opt-out HIV testing programme, supporting national HIV testing. As part of the extension of the programme, approximately 90 sites will be offered funding to roll out HIV opt-out testing until March 2026. Further funding will be confirmed in due course after the spending review phase two process has concluded.

Local authorities in England are responsible for commissioning open access sexual health services, including HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing services, through the public health grant, funded at £3.6 billion in 2024/25. It is for individual local authorities to decide their spending priorities based on an assessment of local need, and to commission the services that best suit their population, including decisions about online, face to face or postal testing services. We have set up the national HIV and syphilis self-sampling framework to assist local authority commissioners with providing online testing to their residents.