Something for the weekend

Welcome to Sexual Health Week 2006, the ninth year that the Family Planning Association (FPA) has organised this opportunity to highlight a particular aspect of sexual health.

This year's week-long campaign includes guidance for health professionals on talking to patients about condoms.

It might sound a bit basic, but apparently the biggest cause of condom failure is either splitting or slipping off. And the majority of people don't know that there are a range of sizes of condom available that could help to solve these problems.

Yet perhaps this shouldn't come as a great surprise, given the state of sexual education and sexual health awareness in the UK.

Earlier, this year, a poll of UK adults, conducted by MORI for the National Aids Trust, revealed that, despite increases in HIV infections, people are less aware of how the virus is transmitted than they were five years ago.

There was a drop in the number of people who knew that HIV can be passed on by two men having sex without a condom.

The number of people who knew that HIV could be passed on through heterosexual sex without a condom dropped by 12%.

And some people still believe that HIV can be passed on by spitting (7%), kissing (4%) or toilet seats (2%), while 8% of people had no idea at all how HIV was transmitted (up from 2% in 2000).

"We were shocked to discover that, while HIV is increasing in the UK, people know less about the risks than they did five years ago, and continue to practice unsafe sex," said National Aids Trust chief executive Deborah Jack.

The poll also found that, in London, where HIV rates are highest, knowledge of transmission routes was lower than anywhere else in the country – only 69% knew that HIV could be passed on through sex without a condom between two men.

And 15% of people who have had a new sexual partner in the last two years would rarely or never use a condom with that new partner.

It's a fair bet that similar levels of knowledge apply to sexually transmitted diseases other than HIV.

But levels of ignorance are not restricted to STDs. Another survey a couple of years ago showed that some young people still believe that you can't get pregnant the first time you have sex – at least not if you 'do it' on top of a telephone directory.

The government has promised much in the way of sex education and health but has reneged.

Schools can still decide what bits of the sex education curriculum they want to teach and which they don't. This is particularly the case in religious schools – despite the evidence of the failure to stop STDs of the US 'abstinence' schemes that George W Bush has been spending millions of taxpayers' dollars on.

And the UK government is also failing on sexual health provision.

Although Chancellor Gordon Brown cut VAT on condoms earlier this year – brownie points (so to speak) for that – Londoners have been given a slap in the face with the news that the city's HIV clinics have been told that they will be given no more money to pay for treatments and care in the current financial year, beyond 4% to cover inflation. This is despite patient numbers being projected to rise by 11% next year.

Why? Because the government is so wedded to the privatisation of the health service, and slapping artificial time limits and budgets on service providers.

In the spring, NHS bosses sliced 3% off the budget of every primary care trust in Greater London in order to pay for the debts of some.

Research by the BBC found that Kensington and Chelsea Primary Care Trust is £20m in the red and Hillingdon PCT £25m.

Yet the two largest HIV clinics in London owe nothing: the Royal Free Hospital has broken even, while the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital has £1.2m in the bank.

So PCTs that have worked hard to make savings, like these, could lose jobs. Health unions reacted furiously, accusing the Department of Health of "blind panic" that would only save about £4m of the £7m needed to fund new treatments.

Haemophilia services were also told to make cutbacks.

Finally, back to French letters. If you're one of those people who complains about condoms feeling like wearing a welly in the bath, German businessman Oliver Gothe may have the answer.

The founder of Cologne-based company Lebenslust (Lust for Life) has invented a system for making tailor-made condoms.

A machine measures the customer's penis and uses the resulting 3D computer image to make customised johnnies.

And Gothe claims: "These condoms will fit so well you will hardly notice you are wearing one. We can make them wafer thin or fist thick, and 'engrave' them with your signature around the base."

The service will cost approximately £600 for what Lebenslust calls a "large" number, but now you’ll be able to combine safe sex with luxury – the Prada of wellies.