Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what work her Department has undertaken with the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that women presenting with injuries from suspected sexual assault are referred to Sexual Assault Referral Centres rather than to alternative health services without specialist sexual assault support.

We ran a national Call for Evidence on Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls which received an unprecedented 180,000 responses and highlighted numerous issues that the Government is determined to address. This evidence informed our Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy, which we published in July 2021, and will later inform the forthcoming publication of a complementary Domestic Abuse Strategy, in the coming months. We are committing to radically changing how we end violence against women and girls with a whole system approach focusing on: prioritising prevention, supporting survivors, pursuing perpetrators, underpinned by a stronger system.

Among the many commitments in that Strategy, NHS England and NHS Improvement committed to undertake a communications campaign to raise awareness of the support available to victims and survivors through Sexual Assault Referral Centres. Where appropriate, NHS 111 call handlers are trained to signpost people to their local Sexual Assault Referral Centre. NHS England has put in place training for NHS 111 call handlers to ensure they are equipped to support victims and survivors of sexual violence appropriately.