Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to scale the HIV Confident initiative, to (a) all NHS trusts, (b) care homes, (c) dentists and (d) other health and social care settings.

On World AIDS Day, 1 December 2025, the Department published the new HIV Action Plan, which was developed in collaboration with the UK Health Security Agency and NHS England. The plan is backed by over £170 million in funding and sets out five core priorities needed to reach our ambition to end new HIV transmissions within England by 2030. One of these priorities is to address stigma and improve the quality of life for people living with HIV, highlighting several initiatives health and care organisations can join to tackle stigma and discrimination.

This includes HIV Confident, a national initiative led jointly by the National AIDS Trust, aidsmap, Positively UK, and Fast Track Cities, which provides a charter mark for businesses and organisations to ensure that people living with HIV can work for them and access any services they provide with confidence.

NHS England also promotes an e-learning module, Tackling HIV Stigma and Discrimination, available via the NHS Learning Hub and Electronic Staff Record, aimed at equipping healthcare professionals to explore and counter stigma and discrimination in clinical settings.

Currently, NHS England promotes and funds HIV peer support services in the Blood Borne Virus (BBV) emergency department opt-out testing programme, recognising the role of lived-experience facilitators in reducing isolation and stigma. NHS England is in the process of commissioning new HIV anti‑stigma training as part of delivery of the HIV Action Plan, for trusts participating in the BBV emergency department opt‑out testing programme.

The action plan also includes actions for local and regional partners to ensure all health and social care staff have the right knowledge on HIV and can tackle stigma and discrimination. This includes encouraging commissioned services to implement HIV anti-stigma and discrimination training and ensuring staff receive training on HIV awareness, stigma reduction and inclusive care by embedding HIV education into workforce development programmes, safeguarding training, and induction processes.