Tuesday, 12 November 2019

cuts to sexual health service budgets – the rise of home testing and treatment

In recent years, the government has cut funds for public health services across the country. One of the most drastically affected areas is sexual health – between 2016/17 and 2017/18, the budget for sexual health services provided by local authorities was slashed by around 30%. (1)



This has led to the closure of several sexual health clinics nationwide. For the general public, this means more people will be looking at STI home testing and treatment as an option.

What is the difference between STIs and STDs?
In recent decades, there has been a shift from referring to STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) towards referring to STIs (sexually transmitted infections) - in fact, the NHS website refers solely to STIs, with no mention of STDs at all.

This is because not only does the word ‘disease’ hold more grave connotations, but ‘infection’ is the more accurate description since many cases of STIs experience no symptoms, contradicting the image of illness that ‘disease’ implies.

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