Councils are slashing HIV services leaving people with little or no support in their local towns, a new campaign is warning.
A group of charities and health professional bodies have come together to launch the ‘Support people with HIV: Stop the cuts’ campaign, opposing cuts to HIV services.
In an open letter to health secretary Jeremy Hunt, the group calls for more effective commissioning and funding of services.
It highlights that in David Cameron’s own local Oxfordshire County Council area, there will be no HIV prevention and support services after April 2016 due to a cut in funding.
Dr Greg Ussher, METRO Charity CEO, said: ‘Proposed cuts of up to 100% to HIV support services will decimate vital provision for people that cannot speak out against their local authority’s plans for fear of the stigma publicly disclosing their HIV status might bring.’
However the Local Government Association (LGA) said cuts to public health budgets would make it harder for councils to provide prevention services in the future. An LGA spokesperson said: ‘Devolving public health to local government was a positive step, and councils have embraced their new responsibilities by increasing spending on sexual health services since 2013 to approximately £600m a year.
‘Given that much of councils' public health budget goes to pay for NHS services, including sexual health, government reductions to the public health budget of more than £530 m over the next five years are likely to affect the prevention services councils are able to provide, such as tackling sexually transmitted infections. This will put further pressure on other NHS services.’
