Current status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 11 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what annual funding has been made available for HIV transmission elimination since that goal was set in 2020.
HIV transmission elimination is funded as part of the wider Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus (SHBBV) budget. Many of the interventions which support this have wider impacts on sexual health improvement and blood borne virus elimination.
Prior to the Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Action Plan 2023-26, the SHBBV Framework was supported by approximately £2 million, to support delivery of the outcomes between 2018 and 2021. This funding came to an end in March 2021.
Due to the pandemic, during 2021-22 interim arrangements were made for third sector organisations to continue to receive funding under the Framework from an SHBBV budget of around £0.8 million, with an additional £0.5 million allocated as part of COVID-19 planning to support recovery actions.
The SHBBV budget is approximately £1.7m per year since 2023-24. This supports delivery of the Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Action Plan 2023-26, including a range of projects focused on HIV transmission elimination (details of which were published with the Plan).
Other specific projects the Scottish Government has funded include the national HIV anti-stigma campaign (£250,000 in 2022-23), the development of an ePrEP clinic (£400,000 in 2022-23), emergency department opt-out testing pilots (£145,000 in 2023-24), online postal self-sampling for sexually transmitted infections and HIV (£119,000 in 2023-24 and £300,000 in 2024-25), the Terrence Higgins Trust HIV self-test service (around £120,000 per year) and a workforce education project led by Waverley Care to reduce stigma in health and social care settings (£95,000 in 2024-25).