Integrated Sexual Health Services

Tender description

The Local Authority is mandated under the terms of the Health and Social Care Act (2012) to commission sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services on behalf of residents. Specialist sexual health clinics are ‘open access’, meaning that residents of any borough can access any clinic in England. Providers then bill the resident’s home borough using their post code. In London, there is an ‘Integrated Sexual Health Tariff’ (ISHT) so that prices are standardised. Newham Council led the discussions with NHS Barts Health on behalf of other Northeast London (NEL) Local Authorities (LAs) (specifically Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest and Redbridge) because the Council is funded by these authorities under an inter authority agreement to run a Shared Commissioning Service for SRH and related services (e.g. HIV prevention and support). The high-level five-year aims for SRH agreed for the NEL system through the Strategy are as follows: • Reverse the trend of increasing STI diagnoses by preventing and reducing the onward transmission of STIs through effective testing and treatment. • Improved prevention and early diagnosis of HIV, with a focus on increasing the uptake of PrEP in all high-risk communities. • Increase knowledge and choice around reproductive health for NEL residents, with increased uptake of the most reliable forms of contraception, especially LARC. • Reduce the number of unplanned and teenage conceptions. • Reduce the number of abortions and repeat abortions, learning from models seen in Tower Hamlets and City & Hackney. • Reduce demographic inequities in sexual health access and outcomes where they are known or identified in the future. • Ensure that principles of ‘Universal Proportionalism’ run through all of our work on SRH over the next five years, prioritising our most vulnerable and high-risk residents wherever possible. Keywords: integrated, sexual, health