Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much and what proportion of the funding allocated to his Department will be allocated to tackling rates of HIV.
HIV testing and prevention is funded by local government through the ringfenced Public Health Grant. We have provided £3.324 billion to local authorities in England to fund public health services in 2021/22, including sexual health and HIV services. We have invested in the successful deployment of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in England and the Public Health Grant in 2021/22 includes £23.4 million to cover local authorities’ costs of routine commissioning of PrEP.
Funding for HIV treatment and care services is provided by NHS England and NHS Improvement through specialised commissioning. Decisions on future funding for are being taken as part of the forthcoming Spending Review. It is for individual local authorities to decide their spending priorities based on an assessment of local need, including the need for HIV prevention services Funding for PrEP in 2021/22 has been allocated using a specific formula which recognises that the level of risk of acquiring HIV is distributed differently to the approach taken for the Public Health Grant.