While home testing kits are a good idea a lot of NHS Trusts could do more to help treatment. The majority of UI clinics have restricted opening hours for example. Personally, if I received a SMS from someone suggesting that I get a STD self-testing kit I might be a bit annoyed at the inference that I am carrying a disease. So there is a risk that the message could backfire a touch, or someone gets on their religious high horse about it and says it insults their purer-than pure lifestyle. Mind you, if you're male then Chlamydia is pretty hard to ignore - it does say hello in rather an obvious way - so if you need a text to say that the blob on your knob ain't normal you're not really paying much attention to your personal health. For females of course many STDs are much less visual, but such diseases are still rather taboo to discuss openly.

Most people who do get infected never discuss the problem for fear they will be branded for life as a pox-carrier, even though they're treatable and are wiped out with antibiotics. And that's a mindset which, as a society, we should be trying to change.

I had a test for chlamydia last year in South West England and opted to be sent the result by text message.

What's the big deal?

what ac is that aimed at? me or the other one?

ie, sending the message does not 100% guarantee that someone will recieve it. while thats perfectly acceptable for normal messages, if you're using it for something important like notifying someone of a disease, doesn't that small risk of non-delivery become a bigger issue.

You can request delivery reports and therefore know whether your messages have been received.

Bolton GUM send results via text message, although I believe if you're unlucky the message you get is 'please make an appointment' rather than the one I've always had (thank &deity;) which is 'your results were negative'

It's a good idea to encourage people into their local STI/GUM clinic; unfortunately it's still a long way short of where things need to be. Gonorrhea and Syphilis are becoming increasingly more common and Hepatitis B can be very easy to catch, even if it's the opinion of the clinics that you need to be a MSM (a man who has sex with men) to be at risk (they don't offer the vaccination to exclusively MSW/WSM, and there is still a widespread underfunding for the sexual health of women who have sex with women; some people still believe this carries no risks..)

Not to mention that obviously after age 24 you're either completely educated in STIs (hohoho) or in a monogamous long term risk free relationship. I understand the risk for the over 50s is actually increasing somewhat..

I agree with Pete James that it's a subject that is almost impossible to discuss with a general group of people. All STIs are seen as the same, when they are patently not, and that there is such a thing as safe sex - there isn't - there's only reduced risk.

Everyone who's had a change of partner or is exposed to other risk factors should be tested every six months; that's the exception rather than the rule for most people.

I can see it now . Your girl is playing with your phone and the text comes in. You've got the clap try explain they got the wrong number ..

delivery reports for SMS are all well and good, but when you get a pending status for one which has been delivered (and you know it got there because the other person has replied), or even better, when your other half nearly tears you a new ar5ehole because you didn't reply to the SMS which their phone says was delivered and never actually got to you, then, AND ONLY THEN, will you realise that the delivery reports on your phone are not necessarily reliable.

Clinics (off all sorts, not just Sexual Health) have been sending results and appointment reminders by text for some years. The innovation here is that you can use a text to REQUEST a test kit. These are currently free at testing centres (some of which are mobile and visit clubs, pub, colleges etc) but you do have to pluck up the courage to say to another person "I want a chlamydia test kit". This service removes that difficulty.

Oh, and Pete James "if you're male then Chlamydia is pretty hard to ignore - it does say hello in rather an obvious way" - fraid not. It's often either totally asymptomatic, or gives short-lived symptoms only, see, for example, http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Chlamydia/Pages/Symptoms.aspx?url=Pages/What-is-it.aspx

She says "Sexual Health and HIV medicine services have been using texts for results for at least three years - with delivery rates of over 95% in our service. This is far better at actually getting the test results to people than mail-risk of being opened by nosy parents if you still live at home- or relying on busy young people to remember to ring back in for results.

If people change/lose their mobile or the number is incorrectly recorded there is a small risk of someone not getting the message or it being read by someone else- which is why we don't specify any clinical details in the text and ask people to ring back in if they don't hear from us within a certain time.

Several areas around the country have been running web-based requesting of kits for some time. And agree with Dr Harkin- most guys and girls would not know they had chlamydia which is why the screening kits are so needed!"