PUBLIC health bosses are drawing up a new plan for sexual health services in York, but say budgets are so tight they may have to settle for sharing North Yorkshire’s.

City of York Council is responsible for sexual health services, and needs a new provider from July 2019. The new contract will initially run for three years, and is worth £1.74 million annually, but public health chief Sharon Stoltz said it would be “a challenge” for any provider to deliver a comprehensive service on that budget.

“Our first preference is a bespoke service that works for York but, because of the risks, our fall back - if we are not confident the market can respond to what we need within the budget available - is to do a joint commissioning with North Yorkshire," she told councillors.

The move would give services a larger population and larger budget, but would mean York has less influence over how the new services run, she said. However, Ms Stoltz said they had checked on how other councils had commissioned new services, and believe York will be able to get the contract it wants within budget.

She was speaking at a health scrutiny committee on Wednesday, when a report to councillors said York’s four priorities for sexual health services are late HIV diagnoses, STI testing and diagnosis rates, chlamydia screening and under 18 pregnancies. Ms Stoltz said they were already talking to healths service in York about the plans as “if we get this wrong there are cost implications for the NHS".

York gets just £37 a head in public health funding, lower than the £55 national average. On top of that, The public health grant from government is falling by around 2.6 per cent a year from 2016/17 to 2019/20 and spending on sexual health services in York has fallen from £2.4m a year when responsibility passed from the NHS to the council.