City & Hackney Sexual and Reproductive Health Strategy

Overview

What we’re doing: a strategy for sexual and reproductive health 

Sexual health and wellbeing are a normal part of our everyday health and wellbeing. This is the same for reproductive health, such as the choices we make about contraception and pregnancy. They are human rights. 

In Hackney and the City of London, we want to support people with having a happy and healthy sexual life. We also want to support people with planning or preventing pregnancies. We do this by providing services such as sexual health clinics, free condoms for young people, and making sure different types of contraception are available. We also support people who live with HIV.

What we know is that many people in City and Hackney get sexually transmitted infections, or STIs, such as Chlamydia and Gonorrhoea. We also know that not everyone has access to the type of contraception that would work best for them. This is why we are developing a Strategy for Sexual and Reproductive Health. 

This strategy sets out plans to work with our partners such as the NHS and community-based organisations. It will help us make positive changes over the next five years that will improve local sexual and reproductive health. It will also help us reduce inequalities. 

The strategy has five themes to make sure we cover different issues that are all important.

Consultation on the strategy 

There will be a 12-week consultation on this strategy during the summer of 2023. This will give residents a chance to have their say and let us know if we have chosen the right priorities. Their views can help shape the services we provide. We hope to have the strategy and an action plan ready in the autumn of 2023.

You can share your views by taking part in this survey.

If you complete the survey you can also enter our prize draw for a chance to win a prize worth £50. You can also sign up to an online discussion here (vouchers available for residents who participate).

Why your views matter

Why we are doing this 

The most important reason is that we want people to have better sexual and reproductive health outcomes. This means, for example:

- fewer sexually transmitted infections

- better access to services

- knowing which form of contraception is the right one

- feeling comfortable and confident in making healthy choices 

This could mean using condoms and knowing where you can get them for free (as a young person), going for regular testing, or knowing where you can have a coil fitted. It could also mean you don’t have sex if you don’t want to. 

Another important reason to have a strategy is to make sure different organisations (such as the local authority) and service providers (such as the NHS) work better together. That way, it will be easier for people to access the services they need.

Theme 1 - Healthy and fulfilling sexual relationships 

Services should be right for everyone. This includes young people who are yet to have sex, and older people starting a new sexual relationship. Services should also be helpful for people who have sexual problems, or who have experienced abuse or trauma.

We want to make sure young people receive good information to help them make healthy sexual choices. This can be done through sex and relationship education in schools and other places of education or training.

Theme 2 - Good reproductive health across the life course

Reproductive health includes many things, such as contraception, fertility services, terminations, menopause and sexual assault services. 

The Council is not in charge of providing all these services. Many are delivered by the NHS.
We want to make sure everyone who needs any of these services knows where to go, and feels comfortable and confident going there. These services should also be accessible. It is important that the services are good quality and make people feel cared for.

Theme 3 - Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) prevention and treatment

STIs can cause serious health issues even if you have no symptoms. Using condoms can prevent most STIs.

One of the reasons that we have a lot of STIs in our populations is that we have many young people and young adults that live in City and Hackney. They tend to change partners more often and are quite sexually active, often without using a condom. That means it’s easier for them to get an STI. We also have more people in our communities who identify as gay or bisexual. They are another group with higher numbers of infections. 

To improve this we want to be better at offering young people easy access to good information on sexual health. We want to make it clearer where young people can get free condoms and free STI tests. 

We also want to make sure that clinics and treatment services are easy to find and access.

Theme 4 - Getting to Zero HIV
There has been a lot of improvement in the prevention and treatment of HIV. This means people with HIV are living longer and healthier lives. Fewer people are diagnosed with HIV every year. 

To get to the goal of not having any new HIV infections we need to keep testing people. This is also important to prevent something known as ‘late diagnosis’. A late diagnosis means someone is already quite unwell and may have more health complications throughout their life. 

An important HIV prevention tool is called PrEP, which means Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis. PrEP is medication which helps prevent HIV infection. It has been very successful amongst older gay and bisexual men. Now we need to do more to make sure other groups who are at higher risk of HIV are aware and accessing this service too.

Theme 5 - Vulnerable populations and those with complex needs

People can be vulnerable or have higher needs for many different reasons. If this means it is difficult for them to look after their sexual and reproductive health, we need to give them extra support. To do that well, we need to understand better what their needs are. So for this theme, it is important we collect better information. We also want to make sure that information about services is presented in a way that is easy to access and understand. This helps different services work better together to support people with more complex needs.