The public health ring fence will remain in place until 2019.
We also recognise, as recommendation 1 makes clear, that HIV support services are an important part of the overall care that people diagnosed with HIV receive to support their health and wellbeing. I have heard hon. Members’ concerns today about such services being decommissioned because of budget pressures. We are increasing our focus on supporting and improving place-based commissioning, and will work to provide the right opportunities for all commissioners and providers involved in a care pathway to work together to secure the right service response for the needs of the local population, taking into account each partner’s responsibilities.
In line with a number of the recommendations, we also need to ensure that we make the most effective and efficient use of the resources available. We are already seeing some really effective examples of that in the Public Health England HIV innovation fund, which supports voluntary sector-led projects across the country that are focusing, as my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green knows only too well, on HIV prevention and testing. That includes the OutREACH project in Cumbria, which is using community pharmacists to provide HIV testing in a rural area with very high rates of late HIV diagnosis, and the MESMAC project in Yorkshire, which is providing HIV awareness training and testing at a hostel housing migrants who are claiming refugee status in the UK. We are also encouraging innovations such as home testing. Our aim this year is to see 50,000 tests for HIV carried out at home. They are already starting to make a difference. The introduction of compulsory relationships and sexuality education will, as my hon. Friend says, have an important role to play in prevention.
I was very sorry to hear the comments made by the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) about the Sussex Beacon. I am sure that, given his account of the clear local need and the quality of the service, he is holding local commissioners to account for their decision making. I am afraid that my recollection is that I had responded to him on that matter, and not an arm’s length body. I am very sorry if there has been confusion, but I am happy to continue the discussion following this debate, so that we can clear it up and ensure that we make progress on it. I would not like him to think that we do not take it very seriously indeed.
As we all know, delivering high-quality HIV services is about not just funding, but getting the commissioning right. As the report highlights, a lot of work still needs to be done to ensure that the commissioning landscape for the services supports effective collaboration and co-operation, so that we can continue to see improvements in these and other outcomes. That is exactly why Public Health England commissioned a sexual health commissioning survey, which very much supports the findings of both the Health Committee and APPG reports.
I recognise that commissioning sexual health and HIV services is complex, given the range of services and the different population needs that are covered under the broad umbrella of sexual and reproductive health and HIV. We are very alive to and are working to address the risk of fragmentation damaging the progress that we have made, so I am particularly pleased to announce that, shortly, Public Health England will launch an action plan to support commissioners and ensure that they can provide the sexual health and HIV services that their populations need.
As its first priority, Public Health England will look for ways in which to reduce the fragmentation of commissioning and address the barriers that stop effective collaboration and co-operation between commissioners. That will include encouraging the development of a model of lead integrated commissioning in each locality, including developing models for out-of-area tariffs and other issues that can slow down contracts and increase costs. PHE will also identify system leaders across the country to lead local sexual health, reproductive health and HIV commissioning in an agreed locality and form a national network of commissioning leads to promote the effective national development of commissioning.
To test out how that might work in practice, PHE will pilot local delivery models working with local authorities and CCGs to help to build on effective models of commissioning. We will announce the names of the pilot sites shortly—the work is still in the early stages of implementation—but I take this opportunity to urge any areas that are interested in working with us to get in touch with PHE and to take part in developing the work as it takes shape.