Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that PrEP is available in all parts of the UK.

We remain committed to achieving equitable provision of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) irrespective of gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, geographic area of residence, or socio-economic background. The HIV Action Plan Implementation Steering Group (ISG) published a roadmap in February 2024 to help guide efforts to improve access, uptake, and use of PrEP amongst key population groups at significant risk of HIV in England. An implementation working group of key delivery partners is being set up, which will monitor progress on actions and report back to the ISG.

Devolved administrations are responsible for developing and implementing their own public health strategies. Colleagues in England meet regularly with their counterparts in the devolved administrations, to share information and best practice on our response to HIV, including provision of PrEP.

Our commitment to PrEP as part of a combination approach is emphasised by our investment in the successful rollout of PrEP across England, where PrEP is routinely available in specialist sexual health services since March 2020, and we invested more than £34 million in PrEP in 2020/21 and 2021/22. PrEP funding has now been included within the Public Health Grant (PHG) since 2022/23, and funds appointments and testing in sexual health services, whilst NHS England covers the costs of the drug itself. The PHG is funded at £3.6 billion for 2024/25.