Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that Black African communities are (a) aware of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and (b) able to access PrEP.

In March 2020, we announced that pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) will be routinely available across England in 2020/21 as part of the Government’s aim to end HIV transmission by 2030. This year we provided £11 million to local authorities for routine commissioning of PrEP and this is already in place in the majority of areas.

HIV Prevention England is the national HIV prevention campaign funded by Public Health England (PHE) and delivered by Terrence Higgins Trust. It aims to promote evidence-based safer-sex and HIV prevention interventions such as PrEP to black African communities, men who have sex with men and other groups in which there is a higher or emerging burden of infection. HIV Prevention England’s campaign in October 2020 focussed on raising awareness of HIV PrEP in black African Communities.

PHE also runs the Innovation Fund which supports volunteer organisations spearheading new approaches to HIV prevention, including PrEP and focuses on engaging at-risk or under-served communities.