HIV Infection: Health Services
(asked on 4th October 2024) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the oral contribution of Baroness Merron of 11 September 2024, House of Lords, Official Report, column 1565, what steps he is taking to engage with people who have been diagnosed with HIV but who have not accessed HIV care in the last year.
We are making progress in ending new transmissions of HIV within England by 2030 but we know more work needs to be done to achieve our ambitions. The Department, the UK Health and Security Agency, NHS England and a broad range of system partners are working together to develop a new HIV Action Plan, including a focus on HIV care, and retention and reengagement, which we aim to publish by summer 2025.
NHS England’s Service Specification for Adult Specialised Services for People Living with HIV requires all service providers to have a policy describing how they aim to ensure retention in care, and re-engage those lost to care. This service specification is available at the follow link:
Commissioning responsibility for adult specialist services for people living with HIV has been delegated by NHS England to integrated care boards (ICB) in the East of England, the Midlands and the North West regions of England from April 2024, with the South West, South East, London, and the North East regions of England to follow in April 2025. NHS England National Specialised Commissioning does not have specific details on the activities of individual ICBs regarding any funded programmes for HIV services to find and re-engage with people living with HIV who have not accessed HIV care in the last year.
We are making excellent progress with the blood borne virus opt-out testing programme in the highest HIV prevalence areas, helping us reach those who do not typically engage with sexual health services and those who are not engaged in care. In its first 28 months, the programme has identified 1,360 undiagnosed or untreated HIV cases, and over 5,000 cases of untreated or undiagnosed hepatitis B and hepatitis C.