Green MPs will work towards making HIV prevention pill PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) available from community pharmacies, the party has pledged today in its 2024 election manifesto.

This will form part of a ‘joined-up evidence based approach’ to work towards no more HIV transmissions by 2030.

The party will also advocate for the drug to be made available from GP services and online, it said.

In a PrEP roadmap published in February, the government said ‘more evidence’ was needed ‘on the effectiveness of providing PrEP outside SHSs’.

The Green party will also push for smoking cessation, drug and alcohol treatment and sexual health services to be ‘properly funded’, the party’s manifesto said.

And it called for public health budgets to be restored to 2015/16 levels, with an immediate annual increase of £1.5bn, as well as primary medical care spending to be increased by £1.5bn by 2030.

If elected, the party has also promised to increase NHS frontline workers’ salaries, including nurses, doctors and dentists.

Green MPs will also advocate for a National Commission ‘to agree an evidenced-based approach to reform of the UK’s counter-productive drugs laws’, the manifesto said.

The party has previously proposed that recreational drugs be available to purchase from licensed outlets, with access to health and support services for those that need them, and the supply regulated by the government.

Commenting at the manifesto launch, Green Party co-leader, Adrian Ramsay, said: ‘Our NHS is at breaking point following 14 years of underfunding. Patients are stuck in hospital corridors, people can’t see their GP or NHS dentist when they need to and staff are severely overstretched.

‘Greens believe passionately in the NHS and we are the only party to be honest with the public that it’s going to cost money to nurse the NHS back to health after 14 years of Conservative damage.

‘Not just by shifting a small pot around, but by asking the very richest in our society to pay a modest amount more in tax to fund the investment we need to nurse the NHS back to health.’