Where does someone get PEP from?

These places might give people PEP:

• Sexual Health clinics (GUM or ‘clap’ clinics)
• Hospitals (usually A&E or Accident & Emergency departments)

You must also meet the prescribing guidelines for PEP - to find out if you are likely to meet the criteria, use our online self-assessment tool.

If you already have HIV try your HIV clinic if the PEP is for someone you’ve had sex with. Not all these places in every part of the country will have PEP or be able to give it and GPs usually won’t be able to prescribe it.

Find your nearest GUM here.

What are the chances someone will get PEP?

New guidelines have been given to Sexual Health Clinics that help doctors decide if PEP should be given. A doctor will need to ask questions about what kind of sex happened, when and who with. It’s worth thinking about PEP if you or someone you had sex with didn’t use a condom (or something went wrong with the condom) and it’s not later than 72 hours (3 days) since it happened. Doctors might sometimes give PEP after oral sex, depending on the circumstances.

What kind of questions are asked if someone wants PEP ?

The questions they will ask you will be about:-

• the person the unsafe sex was with (to judge the chances they had HIV or not)
• the sex involved, e.g. when it happened; was it oral, vaginal or anal sex; was semen involved?
• having an HIV test (before someone is given PEP they must have an HIV test to check they don’t already have HIV. They must agree to be tested after taking PEP to see if it’s worked. PEP won’t be offered if someone refuses to be tested).

What if someone can’t get to a place that has PEP within 72 hours?

Once 72 hours are over PEP won’t usually be offered. So if it’s not possible to get to a Sexual Health Clinic that’s open it may be worth trying a hospital Accident & Emergency department because they never close (although there’s no guarantee they’ll give PEP).

If someone takes PEP can their body become resistant to HIV drugs so that the drugs won’t work if that person later gets HIV?

No, it’s the virus (HIV), not someone’s body, that can become resistant to the drugs. If PEP works it gets rid of the virus – and the virus can’t become resistant because it’s not there anymore. So if someone were to get HIV later and needed drugs it wouldn’t make any difference that they took PEP in the past. But if PEP doesn’t work and a person then ends up infected, there may be problems with the HIV in their body being resistant to some drugs, including ones used in PEP.

If someone’s taking PEP does that make them immune to HIV while they’re on it or once they’ve stopped taking it?

No. Unsafe sex while taking PEP could let more HIV into your body, making PEP much more likely not to work.If after taking PEP someone’s stayed HIV negative and then has unsafe sex again, they can become infected just like any other HIV negative person.

Now there’s PEP does it matter so much if people don’t use condoms?

Here’s why PEP doesn’t change the need for condoms:

• Using a condom is more likely to stop HIV being passed on than PEP is
• Condoms don’t make you ill with nasty side effects
• You need a condom for as long as the sex lasts – but PEP lasts for 4 weeks
• Condoms are everywhere. PEP can be hard – sometimes impossible - to get
• You control getting hold of condoms but doctors decide if you should get PEP and they may say no

How many times can someone have PEP?

Doctors decide who gets PEP and they’re unlikely to give these expensive and powerful drugs to the same person time after time. So someone who keeps having unsafe sex will usually be offered help with having safer sex and won’t be given PEP lots of times. Besides, the side effects often put people off wanting to take PEP more than once.