Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if the Government will make an assessment of the potential merits of providing free at-home HIV testing that is available nationwide all year round.
We recognize the importance of HIV testing for improving early diagnosis and will set out our plans for its wider access in the Sexual and Reproductive Health Strategy and the HIV Action Plan, planned to be published this year.
Access to and provision of HIV testing, including online and self-sampling services, is the responsibility of local authorities. There is no comprehensive data available on the number of local authorities that provide HIV self-sampling services. Public Health England’s framework for the national HIV self-sampling service was set up in 2015 and is used by many local authorities.