A recent report has ranked York at a 2.1 on its sexual health this month.
The findings included UoY’s sexual assault service being awarded an F, and its STI testing being given an A.
Dr Ed.com partnered with the Superdrug Online Doctor Service to assess and rank the sexual health services of the top 50 UK Universities, including Oxford, St Andrews and UCL.
The trial that was undertaken was researched through a number of methods including; web research, a student officer survey and telephone mystery shopping and centered around nine service areas, from on-campus STI testing information, to sexual assault services and the distance of off-site services from the main university campus.
First year philosophy student told Vision; “I literally couldn’t care less what this score concludes but an F for sexual assaults is quite worrying. I think this is something that should be taken up with the university further”.
Bristol came out top, being awarded a 1st grade with 80 points and A grades in all subjects bar one B and two D’s in Sexual Assault Service and Sexual Health Information on its website.
Cardiff scored the lowest, with 38 points, not even a pass on official scores. Its grades ranged from E to B, many grades lower than other universities.
A University of Cardiff student Francesca Padday, speaking to Vision, responded to the card saying “I literally have no idea where we would go on campus… I don’t even think we have a clinic”.
The aim of the trial was to bring light to areas in sexual health that universities are achieving in, and areas that they need to improve on, such as the Sexual Assault Service, which scored low grades for all universities.
With no evidence for any real solid methodology in the article the results from the report should be treated carefully if not discounted. York, as I’m sure you know, is a very safe city, particularly compared to some of the other mentioned and definitely many other surveyed, if this were to carry any form of merit.
Rates of sexual assault in the City are far lower than other Cities mentioned in addition Support services in the City are also of a high standard nationally, at YUSU we have strong links with Bridge House Sexual Assault Referral Centre in the City (http://www.turntobridgehouse.org/). They work closely with North Yorkshire Police to provide a dedicated support service for men or women who have been raped or sexually assaulted recently or in the past.
It’s great York received a high score for STI testing, although who knows how this was measured, as for the lower score in Sexual Assault this does not reflect the actual situation which is quite positive nationally, I am however concerned as to how they got to this conclusion. If there are any areas we as a Union can work on or the City Council need to be working on, then it’d be good to hear more.