Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 9 September to Question 286636 on HIV infection, what steps he is taking to reduce the number of people diagnosed with HIV at a late stage of infection.

Public Health England (PHE) commissions HIV Prevention England programme and one of its objectives is to increase HIV testing to reduce undiagnosed infection and late diagnoses. PHE, in partnership with local authorities commissions the National HIV Self-Sampling Service providing an online HIV testing service. Since 2015 nearly 90,000 people have used the service.

PHE published key messages for healthcare professionals in the 2018 HIV in the United Kingdom report outlining measures to increase HIV testing and reduce undiagnosed infection, these complement other national guidelines. PHE also provides late HIV diagnosis data to local authorities to monitor local patterns and take action.