Lord Fowler
Main Page: Lord Fowler (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Fowler's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(11 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, the noble Lord is quite correct. Self-management is one of the BHIVA standards. I agree that self-management and supporting patients to manage their own care, both for HIV and, for that matter, any other long-term condition, are very important for promoting the best treatment outcomes for individuals. A variety of approaches will be needed to support individuals to self-manage their HIV. There are already some innovative programmes, such as the online resource, My HIV, for people living with HIV, delivered by the Terrence Higgins Trust. The key to this is for commissioners of services to work together in future to ensure that self-care is part of the HIV care pathway, and GPs will have a role to play in that.
My Lords, I declare an interest as patron of the British HIV Association. Is it not the case that we now have 100,000 people living with HIV in this country but that a quarter of them are undiagnosed, so obviously risk spreading the infection further? Does that not mean that we must persuade even more people to come forward for testing? In that respect, will the Government now commit themselves to bringing forward proposals to allow home testing?