Genito-urinary Medicine

(asked on 25th February 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Lord Bethell on 24 February (HL Deb, cols 2–3), what the expected increase in the preventative health budget will be; how much of that will directly benefit sexual health services; what steps they are taking to put innovation at the centre of the sexual health strategy; and what assessment they have made of the pressures on the sexual health workforce arising from the increasing prevalence of sexual transmitted infections.


Answered by
Lord Bethell Portrait
Lord Bethell
This question was answered on 10th March 2020

The 2019 Spending Round provided a real terms increase in the public health grant to local authorities. This is in addition to the funding the National Health Service provides for preventative services. Local authorities in England are mandated to provide comprehensive open access sexual health services. It is for individual local authorities to decide their spending priorities based on an assessment of local need, including the need for sexual health services taking account of their statutory duties.

Work on the development of a new national sexual and reproductive health strategy is underway. Initial engagement has already taken place and we are considering suggestions for priority areas for the new strategy we received through the Green Paper Advancing our health: prevention in the 2020s. Details of the strategy’s scope and objectives will be announced in due course.

The Department has not made a specific assessment of the pressures on the sexual health workforce arising from increasing prevalence of sexually transmitted infections.

Reticulating Splines