UK sexual health services improving, but many clinics still struggling to cope

Sexual health services improved slightly in the UK last year, but many clinics are still finding it hard to provide appointments and are turning away patients, according to a report conducted by the Terrence Higgins Trust (THT), the British HIV Association (BHIVA) and the Providers of AIDS Care and Treatment (PACT).

The report is the product of questionnaires completed by 47 Primary Care Trusts (which have responsibility for commissioning sexual health and HIV services) and 69 specialist HIV and sexual health doctors.

It is the third annual report looking at sexual health and HIV services published by THT, BHIVA and PACT and the first since the government provided an extra £300 million of funding for sexual health services after a damning report on the nation’s sexual health by an all-party committee of MPs.

According to the report, Clinical Trials?, the extra government money is starting to make a difference as 15% of sexual health and HIV specialist doctors thought that their ability to provide a service had improved in the last year. A third thought it had stayed the same, and 52% thought it had deteriorated.

“There was a marked decrease (52% down from 67% in 2003) of clinicians who reported that things got worse in 2004”, notes the report, adding “there was also a small but marked increase in respondents who had positive views of their ability to provide services having improved (15% from 12%).”

Nevertheless, the report found that many sexual health services were still struggling to cope with demand. Only a quarter of doctors reported being able to provide an appointment for a sexual health screen within a week, and over a third said that waiting times for an HIV test were over two weeks.

A third of doctors also said that they often had to turn away patients without providing treatment and 68% said that they expected to overspend their drugs’ budget.

Evidence was also found that PCTs were not prioritising sexual health and HIV. Almost half all the PCTs had not conducted a specific needs assessment for sexual health and HIV within the last three years, and that 47% of PCTs did not increase their spending on sexual health and HIV last year, despite the fact that the government made an additional £300 million of funding available.

A spokesperson for the Terrence Higgins Trust said, “where government money is getting through to sexual health services, matters are improving, but too often managers are failing to take sexual health seriously.”