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Today NAT (National AIDS Trust) will challenge in the High Court the legality of the NHS England decision to remove PrEP from its commissioning process.
Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) involves HIV negative people taking an antiretroviral drug to avoid getting HIV. It has been shown to be extremely effective by multiple studies from around the world. It has also been shown to be cost-effective, and in the UK, where over 4,000 people are acquiring HIV a year, it is urgently needed.
In March, after 18 months of preparation, NHS England suddenly abandoned its work on PrEP, saying that: ‘local authorities are the responsible commissioner for HIV prevention services’ and that ‘NHS England is not responsible for commissioning HIV prevention services’.
NAT believes that PrEP should be commissioned by NHS England and felt it had no option but to challenge this decision through judicial review.
Deborah Gold, CEO at NAT said: “Local authorities do not have sole responsibility for HIV prevention in England. NHS England has a clear role in prevention. Our view, and the view of our legal advisors, is that there is nothing to prevent the NHS from commissioning PrEP should it wish to.
This has highlighted a huge issue with our health system. It is simply unacceptable that we are having to go to court to clarify who has responsibility for commissioning such an important innovation. We are very hopeful that the court will agree with the case we are making. The outcome will have significant implications for future funding of public health interventions in this country. Not to mention the thousands of people who need access to PrEP now.”