Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to ensure that people in prisons have effective access to HIV prevention tools, including condoms, pre-exposure prophylaxis, post-exposure prophylaxis, and harm-reduction measures.

The new HIV Action Plan sets out how the Government will enable every level of the healthcare system to work together to engage everyone in prevention, testing, and treatment, tackling stigma, and reaching our ambition to end new HIV transmissions by 2030. This includes a dedicated action to deliver tailored and targeted HIV prevention, treatment, and care services to meet the needs of local populations and address inequalities, including the challenges of HIV prevention and care in prisoners.

Sexual health services in prisons are commissioned by NHS England under the Section 7a Public Health Functions Agreement with the Department. They are required to deliver care and ensure access in accordance with the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV’s prison standards, helping to ensure that all individuals in custody receive equitable healthcare comparable to that available in the community.

Access to HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis in England is via commissioned level three sexual health services. These are commissioned by local authorities for people in the community. NHS England Health and justice commissioners arrange for these providers to enable access for detained people via referral for assessment. The service is accessed by the detained person via in-reach provision, where the sexual health team come on-site, or out-reach provision, where the individual goes out to clinic. The level three sexual health team use the same commissioning policy to provide the service on the same basis to detained people and people in the community.

HIV post exposure prophylaxis is accessed by prisoners in the same way as people in the community. They attend accident and emergency or access a Sexual Assault Referral Centre based on locally commissioned arrangements.

To inform future action, the UK Health Security Agency is working with regional partners to carry out an audit to understand the provision of HIV diagnosis, prevention, and care in English prisons.