‘Leading improvement in sexual health across the south west’
South West
Sexual Health Board
Newsletter
Summer 2016
Chair’s Update
Thanks for reading the Summer Newsletter. It contains feedback from the last meeting of the South West Sexual Health Board. Please feel free to circulate it widely to anyone who might be interested and to get back to me with comments, suggestions and additions to the circulation list.
At the July meeting of the Sexual Health Board,Lisa Brown, Health & Justice Commissioner for NHS England, gave an update on Sexual Assault Referral Centres(SARCs). Lisa reported that NHS England are planning to undertake a benchmarking piece of work across all SARCs in the South West to align services to the new national Specification 30. NHS England is also aiming to build up commissioner links for SARC Partnership Boards which are set up in each area; the aim of the SARC Boards is to represent commissioning organisations. CCG engagement is also being sought for each Board as CCGs are responsible for therapeutic support (ie counselling) for victims of sexual abuse and a coordinated response for services is required. A launch of the new SARC specification will be arranged for the South West to highlight this area of responsibility to CCG’s along with highlighting key points from the Goddard Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. It is recognised that a mapping exercise is needed to understand what therapeutic services are available across the South West.
The new SARC specification 30 and the commissioning framework can be found via the following links:

Lisa also highlighted to the Board a pocket guide produced by NHS England to provide practical information to health care staff to safeguard children and young people from child sexual exploitation:

The Board is still looking to recruit a GP to attend quarterly Board meetings andwould be happy for the attached advert to be circulated throughout the South West:

Prof Mark Pietroni

Work plan update
The Quarterly Indicator Report Review Group presented their proposed amendments to the Board. The Review Group is currently working on the final report in preparation for sign off by the Chair.
Workforce Development – a scoping exercise of the proposal to review the current sexual health workforce across the South West has now been completed. The report of this scoping exercise is being used to inform the development of the project. The planned work will consider the current workforce situation alongside a review of training resources and workforce development opportunities.
The Chlamydia Screening Programme: cost effectivenesswork is being summarised in a report for Directors of Public Health. The report presents the recent trends in chlamydia screening and sets out the current issues associated with delivering a comprehensive screening programme.
Two Local Authority Briefing Noteson teenage pregnancy and PEP & PrEPhave been produced for Local Authority Councillors. Each briefing is designed to be personalised by each area adding their own local data and graphs. The briefing notes were sent to Directors of Public Health and Commissioners for local dissemination and the Board has received positive feedback as to their usefulness.
Changes to theSouth West Abortion Outcome Indicators were recommended by the South West Abortion Expert Advisory Group and were approved by the Board. The most significant change recommended by the group is the removal of the ‘percentage of repeat abortions’ indicator as this was considered not to be specifically an abortion indicator but reflects system performance.
Information and Research
  • The latest academic and evidence into practice presented at the July Board on behalf of
Dr Patrick Horner, Consultant Senior Lecturer, School of Social and Community Medicine,
University of Bristol included ‘Making every contact count – risky alcohol consumption in sexual
health clinic attendees’, ‘Condom availability may influence geographical disparities of sexual health outcomes, specifically STI/HIV infections’ and ‘Medicated sex in Britain: evidence from the third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles’. Full details in the attached document:

  • Pre Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention:
The High Court has told NHS England that it can fund PrEP. Following concern that NHS England might decide that the responsibility for offering and funding PrEP should move to local authorities, a challenge by the National Aids Trust (NAT) has resulted in the High Court ruling. NHSEngland announced on the 3rd of August that they will be launching an appeal regarding commissioning and provision of PrEP for HIV prevention:

  • The latest report on Hepatitis C in the UK has now been published:
  • Sexual & Reproductive Health Profiles are available via this link:

  • Retesting chlamydia-positive individuals within six months in the South West of England:
An observational study to evaluate three pilot programmes of retesting chlamydia-positive individuals within 6 months in the South West of England -- Angel et al. 5 (10) -- BMJ Open
Events and Resources
The ‘Great Sexpectations’ Conference will be taking place in Bristol on Thursday 2nd February 2017:

This year’s National HIV Testing Week starts on 19 November 2016. Click the link below for further information on what you can do to support National HIV Testing Week and to get free resources:

Latest information, news and highlights from the RSE Hub
News, events and updates from BASHH

For more information on any aspect of the Directors of Public Health Network and Office for Sexual Health South West please contact: