Rotherham's sexual health clinic set for closure

The Sunday service at Rotherham Hospital had more than 400 youngsters attend during its first year.

It will be closed because of budget pressures at Rotherham Public Health, which must find £1 million savings this year.

But Dr Nadi Gupta, lead clinician at Rotherham Integrated Sexual Health, said there was a syphilis “epidemic” and she saw four sex assault cases in as many days recently.

She added: “If you know anyone who’s been affected by any of these things, or have children, you will recognise the value of this service. We need to protect it.

“We receive on average 350 calls per day. That’s the scale of this. It’s sometimes in excess of 800 calls.

“The service on a Sunday is for under-25s because there are high rates of STIs in this group in Rotherham.

“I have always been very open about my grave concerns of any cuts to this service in addition to the nine per cent we made at the start of last year.”

Clinical nurse specialist Natalie Gibbons said: “Ideally, we want to keep that service if we could because it’s a targeted service and we know that infections are increased in that age group.

“I’ve worked in Rotherham for 14 years. I’ve seen how young people have become more and more deprived.

“We are looking at young people with depression, drug use, alcohol misuse, so we have quite a job.

“When they come to our service, we don’t just treat the sexual health side of things, we look at them holistically.

“We try to look at how we can prevent further ill health with these young people.

“Certainly, from a safeguarding point of view, every single young person that comes through our service gets a safeguarding assessment.”

Dr Gupta added: “There’s a perception that CSE is resolved in Rotherham, but it’s ongoing. We have new cases all the time that we refer to safeguarding.”

Cllr Kerry Albiston, a member of Rotherham’s Health Select Commission, said: “I’m really struggling with this. 

“We identified there was a gap in provision therefore we invested some money to develop a new service for this targeted group. How are we going to address that gap if we cut the Sunday service?”

She also raised the possibility of an impact on A&E after the Sunday clinic is shut.

Rotherham Public Health said the Sunday clinic was not as well used as others and had been more expensive to run.

Director Terri Roche added: “We are making difficult, difficult decisions and have been for quite a while.”