Chlamydia Lived Experience Report

This is a report by Healthwatch West Sussex. The project looks at sexual health services from a lived experience perspective.

Healthwatch West Sussex worked with Public Health (West Sussex County Council) and West 
Sussex NHS Sexual Health Services to create a project to understand what young people (aged 
16-25 and living in West Sussex) think about the low uptake of free online Chlamydia Testing. 
The key aims were to find out what barriers or challenges young people perceive in accessing 
testing. 

They also wanted to learn from young people what they think services could do differently to 
increase awareness, increase uptake of chlamydia testing and improve sexual health locally. 

Surveys, interviews and focus groups were all used in this research. A total of 332 participants.

Key findings include:

From the data we collected, and in listening to local young people, there are some suggested actions to increase knowledge and confidence about STI’s - including: 

• More health talks in schools, colleges and university to debunk the myths. 
• Know more about the on-line testing. 
• Normalising the subject in conversation. 
• Advertise on social media. 
• Information needs to come from trusted agency.
• Diverse video clips.

Young people told us that there needs to be better and more promotion of sexual health services, young people said that the information would be: 

• More acceptable to young people on social media.
• Information from schools and collages, parents, GP, Pharmacy, and counsellor. 
• Doing your own research. 
• Webinars and peer to peer.