Sexual healthcare is not just for the young

Nurses should have the courage to talk about sexual health issues with older patients – they will thank you for it

Recently I carried out routine sexual health screening for a man in his late seventies. There was nothing unusual in asking him for a urine sample to test for chlamydia and gonorrhoea and a blood sample to test for HIV and syphilis. What was unusual was that it was his first visit to a sexual health clinic and I was the first healthcare professional that he had ever talked to about sex.

His wife had died ten years ago and he had just split from his only other sexual partner, a long-term girlfriend who had admitted to having a recent affair. He was worried about infection before embarking