SHIP HIT’s work to make STI tests safer highlighted in national media

Concerns around potentially unsafe online test providers for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) have grown in recent years, with sexual health experts calling for tighter regulation.

Bristol Health Partners’ Sexual Health Improvement Health Integration Team (SHIP HIT) has been encouraging policy-makers to make online STI testing safer. Their work with the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) was recognised in a Daily Telegraph article published 3 February 2022.

This highlights that “sexual health experts have called for tighter regulation of companies offering self-testing for STIs over concerns of a lack of follow-up and unmonitored prescribing of antibiotics.”

Background

In 2020, SHIP HIT directors Emma Harding-Esch and Paddy Horner, former director Katy Turner, and Peter Muir at UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), co-supervised a LSHTM MSc summer project called ‘Online Tests for Sexually Transmitted Infections – Friend or Foe? A Scoping Review and Analysis of Providers’

Building on this project, in 2021 BASHH released a position statement “to alert the relevant regulatory and advisory bodies to the testing and treatment practices of some STI service providers which are inconsistent with national guidance”.

BASHH’s Bacterial Special Interest Group (BSIG), of which Dr Harding-Esch and Dr Horner are members, has been leading a programme of work to effect long-term change in how online STI testing is provided, to ensure better patient care. BSIG members presented their progress at a BASHH webinar on 2 February 2022, which was attended by more than 200 people worldwide, and the Daily Telegraph article followed the next day.

Paddy Horner, SHIP HIT director, says:

“We’re delighted that our work with BSIG has been highlighted by a national newspaper. Through the programme of work, we hope patients will be able to make informed choices about where to test and know what level of service to expect.”

Find out more about what the SHIP HIT is working on and follow SHIP HIT on Twitter @SHIPSexHealth