Waiting list created to manage 'significant demand' for HIV drug after council underspends on delivery

A waiting list to manage the “significant demand” for a drug reducing the risk of HIV has been created in Peterborough.

The demand is for pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, a relatively new drug that lowers the risk of HIV, a transmittable virus that can severely damage the body’s immune system.

Although PrEP was approved for use in the US in 2012 and Scotland in 2017, it was not until 2020 that it became available via the NHS in England.

At the time, the Government announced £16 million for local authorities to deliver the treatment through sexual health clinics.

But Peterborough City Council (PCC) spent less than half of the almost £40,000 it was granted for delivering PrEP in 2020-21.

“As it was a new drug there were delays in the supply chain and in the actual grant award resulting in the in-year underspend,” a PCC report says.

But the £24,400 not spent in this period is being spent on PrEP now, it continues, with this money as well as the new waiting list helping to manage demand.

The council will continue to receive money each year to cover the clinical supervision of PrEP. It has been allocated £37,992 per year by the Government, while the cost of the drug itself is the responsibility of NHS England.

PCC partners with Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC) to deliver sexual and reproductive health services in the county, with CCC commissioning Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust to undertake this.

PrEP is available to “anyone who is at a high risk of contracting HIV”, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) says, and is “highly effective at preventing HIV transmission from sex or injection drug use”.

According to the NHS, people with a current or previous partner with HIV are at higher risk of the virus, as are gay and bisexual men – although women can also become infected.

It adds that, although HIV can have “devastating consequences” leading to serious illness and death if it’s not treated, if managed correctly with medicine it’s possible to live a “near-normal life”.