Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to meet the needs of women with HIV as identified in the report Women and HIV: Invisible no longer published in April by the Sofia Forum and the Terence Higgins Trust.

NHS England welcomes the Sofia Forum report into the needs of women with HIV. The report provides a summary of the findings of two studies aimed at understanding the needs of women living with or affected by HIV in the United Kingdom and a number of recommendations.

In order to meet the needs of women with HIV as identified in the report, NHS England is currently considering how they can address stigma, implementation of peer support and mental health in their HIV services and will take these recommendations for women into account. The report will be considered as part of the evidence base in any future reviews of the HIV Prevention and Sexual Health Promotion programme.

In addition to routine data collection, detailed gender breakdowns will be routinely included as part of Public Health England’s HIV Official Statistics. Public Health England is piloting enhanced surveillance to better understand the circumstances associated with men and women acquiring HIV and the reasons for delays in testing for HIV among them.