Dan Jarvis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-05-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will direct the NHS to review its decision on the expansion of access to pre-exposure prophylaxis treatment for people most at risk of contracting HIV.

Jane Ellison

NHS England’s Specialised Services Commissioning Committee (SSCC) have considered and accepted NHS England’s external legal advice that it does not have the legal power to commission pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). However, work on PrEP is ongoing and up to £2 million will be invested in a pilot programme to target those at highest risk over the course of two years.

Public Health England is working to identify the most effective locations for the introduction of this pilot. The Department will be discussing future commissioning with stakeholders.

PrEP is a new use of HIV drugs which has shown effectiveness in research trials at preventing HIV in people at high risk of getting HIV such as men who have sex with men and people with HIV-positive partners. The drug used in United Kingdom trials, Truvada, is not yet licenced for use as PrEP. As with any new intervention, PrEP now needs to be properly assessed in relation to clinical and cost effectiveness to see how it could be commissioned in the most sustainable and integrated way and how it compares with other cost-effective approaches.

Our £2.4 million national HIV Prevention and Sexual Health Promotion Programme also gives those at highest risk the best advice to make safer choices about sex.