Firm's sexual health clinic deal to be torn up

A PRIVATE firm’s contract to run Newcastle’s sexual health clinic is set to be ripped up. Newcastle City Council has confirmed that it has agreed a “mutual termination” of Solutions 4 Health's ($4H) provision of the city’s sexual health service, just two years after it was controversially taken out of NHS hands.

- By DANIEL HOLLAND

Ravensworth Terrace, Newcastle

There were serious concerns from healthcare campaigners when S4H took over clinical sexual health services in Newcastle in October 2023, with the provision having been NHS-run for the previous 70 years, while furious staff at the clinic warned that the move risked a rise in unintended pregnancies and leaving more sexually transmitted infections untreated.

Council bosses admitted this summer that the service “should and could be better’, saying in July that it was looking at “ways to strengthen the service and ensure it continues to meet local needs’ - including moving to a new base in the Summerhill conservation area, which opened in September.