The recommendation comes in a letter to health minister Stephen Kinnock from the Health and Social Care Committee following an evidence session.

Health and Social Care Committee chair Layla Moran said: ‘Despite having a dedicated and passionate workforce, we heard that sexual health services can feel like an overlooked and undervalued part of the health service for those on the front line. And the fact that no policy review has been carried out for over a decade is an inexcusable oversight.

‘This Government must now take a panoramic view of the confusing landscape of sexual health and reproductive services. It should come up with a comprehensive strategy to take the anxiety out of accessing care and make sure services are patient-centred and sustainably resourced.'

Recommendation by the committee include: increasing the number of funded training posts for sexual healthcare specialists as part of its NHS 10-Year Workforce Plan; national coordination of online platforms for test kits; a public information campaign and social media strategy on sexual health; and targeted action to improve national data collection on emerging sexual health challenges, such as chemsex-related harm.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘We are committed to improving sexual health services in England.

‘This includes rolling out the world's first gonorrhoea vaccine and offering people at risk of HIV a new long-acting injection on the NHS if they cannot have pills to protect them from the virus. 

‘We will also publish a new HIV Action Plan later this year to set out how we'll hit our target of no new HIV transmissions in England by 2030.'