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APPG report Impact of Health and Social Care Act on HIV treatment

This debate follows the publication by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on HIV and AIDS’ report, “The HIV Puzzle: Piecing together HIV care since the Health and Social Care Act” in November 2016.  This report argued that since the implementation of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 there has been a ‘fragmentation’ of HIV and sexual health services.  This is because of the split in commissioning responsibilities between NHS England, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and local authorities.  There has been particular uncertainty about who is responsible for commissioning Pre Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), medication used to prevent the contraction of HIV. 

The APPG report made several recommendations to the Government, including:

1)     That it clarify commissioning responsibility for HIV support services and protecting their budgets across the country.

2)     That it encourage Public Health England to further integrate HIV and sexual health services.

3)     And that it ensure that NHS England acknowledges its responsibility for commissioning PrEP.