According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, council bosses issued more than a dozen legal warnings to S4H between June 2024 and September 2025 regarding potential breaches of its contract.
During the inspection in July, inspectors found “new swabs and pots for chlamydia and gonorrhoea testing were being stored under the staining sink in open boxes, leaving them open to contamination”.
Eleven records had no documentation of people’s medical history, allergies, lifestyle review or safeguarding assessments.
And the service was experiencing delays in receiving test results, which led to people receiving delayed treatment.
Murrell said the “real world harm” caused by the inadequate-rated service was not yet known.
“I think that the risk of reputational harm for the whole STI service is bad and obviously it’s really important that people trust it.
“If you want to eradicate or reduce infections which can cause infertility and other life-long complications if not treated early then being seen ASAP is essential.
“All the delays and all the inadequacies are just building more infections.”