Have your say on the Circle Room sexual health clinic

Results updated 8 Dec 2025

Thank you to everyone who took part in this consultation about stopping the funding for the Circle Room sexual health clinic.

It was open from 21 July to 28 September 2025, and we received feedback from 120 people in the survey. A summary of the results and the key themes is included later on this page.

Making a decision about the changes

The Lead Member for Adult Social Care and Health will consider the future of the Circle Room on 15 December 2025. 

The papers for the meeting are available on our website now and the minutes will be published there after the meeting. 

The full consultation results and a table summarising the key messages and our responses are both available as appendices to the main recommendations report.

What we are recommending happens

We are recommending to the Lead Member that funding for the clinic be maintained for at least two years due to alternative savings being identified from the sexual health budget.

We are also recommending that the new contract be amended to add the following specifications:

• an enhanced focus on alternative services, including online provision,
• a requirement to support young people to move on to other services once they reach the age limit for the clinic, and
• the ability to refer to wider support.

About those who took part

Of the 120 survey respondents, 78% told us their postcode (94 respondents). Most people (85) lived in Lewes and the surrounding towns and villages. The remaining postcodes were for elsewhere in East Sussex (6) or outside the county (3). 

78 people (65%) chose to answer at least one of the questions on their personal characteristics. Ages ranged from 15 to 64, with an average age of 23. Over half of respondents were female (53%), and only 9% were male, although 35% of respondents skipped this section.

Most respondents (78%) were a registered patient with Foundry Healthcare. The rest were registered with a different GP practice in East Sussex (19%) or with a GP practice outside the county (6%). One person wasn’t registered with a GP practice.

Key themes

98% of respondents disagreed with the proposal to close the Circle Room sexual health clinic. The vast majority chose ‘strongly disagree’ over ‘disagree’ (92% and 6% respectively).

People disagreed with the proposed service closure mainly because:

• the service is vital, especially for young people;
• there would be poorer access to support; and
• the service is beneficial, and provides confidential support and advice in a safe environment

People felt the main impacts of the proposal would be:

• poorer access to support;
• more inconvenience for those using the service;
• reduced access to advice; and
• more expensive journey costs to another service, which would be harder to justify.

Asked which services they would use if the Circle Room closed, the most common answer was “don’t know”.

When invited to make general comments, respondents most commonly:

• reiterated that the clinic is vital;
• stressed that it offers a safe or confidential service;
• felt closure would reduce access to advice or sexual health education; and
• saw the proposal as detrimental to young people

Respondents’ main suggestion, when asked, was that the service should not be cut.

Concerns were expressed about other possible consequences of closure. These included riskier sexual health practices; a rise in teenage pregnancies; and greater anxiety and stigma around testing for young people. Longer term, there were also fears that teenage abortion rates would rise, there would be less early treatment of sexually transmitted infections, and that youth disillusionment with public healthcare would increase.

Additionally, any financial savings were seen by some as likely to be negated by costs and pressure being transferred to other parts of the healthcare system, which themselves are already at capacity.