Consultation opens on future of sexual health services for Bradford district

The council's current contract with sexual health providers is coming to an end soon, and following public engagement carried out by the council and Healthwatch Bradford and District, the council has developed a new approach for commissioning - or buying - sexual health services, which include access to contraception, advice about pregnancy and testing for/treatment of sexually transmitted infections.

The consultation on this approach runs until Friday, July 1, 2022.

Read the consultation document here

After looking at data on key sexual health outcomes and engaging with people who use services and who provide services to inform the new approach, the council is asking the following questions:

• Should more sexual health service be available online?
• What services, and for whom?
• What more could be done for people who may find using online services difficult?
• What sexual health services would you like to be able to get from your GP or pharmacy?
• How can we improve sexual health services for young people?
• How do you think our proposals may affect you, or people you know or are concerned for?

Diverse communities

Last year, Bradford Council conducted a sexual health needs assessment and service review to understand what changes need to be made to the service model in preparation for re-procurement of sexual health services, focusing on the key challenges of reducing the negative impact of sexually transmitted infections and improving the positive impact of contraception on the health and wellbeing of Bradford’s population.

Early in 2022, the council commissioned Healthwatch Bradford and District to provide additional targeted engagement from particular groups of interest and produce a report to inform the future commissioning of services.

The new consultation document outlines how Bradford District, the fifth-largest metropolitan district (in terms of population) in England, has a large population aged under 20 and an ethnically diverse population, with the largest proportion of people of Pakistani ethnic origin (20.3%) in England.

As well as conducting a text chat-style survey for 16-25-year-olds – designed in tandem with local young people – Healthwatch took the opportunity to empower local groups and organisations to hold conversations with community members in ways that worked best for them, with the aim of using its platform as the local health and care champion to amplify those voices.

Focus groups were held by:

• Yorkshire MESMAC (LGBTQI+)
• Highfield Food Co-operative (South Asian men and African men)
• Highfield Food Co-operative (Young people)
• Bradford African Community (Black African men and women refugees)

The council says: "In Bradford we are committed to supporting all residents to live a healthy sexual and reproductive life, free of discrimination, regret, coercion and violence.

"To achieve this, we want to maintain a joined-up, integrated sexual health system which provides good quality and value for money. We want our system to support people in making informed, confident choices, in particular those people at greatest risk of poor sexual health outcomes."