HIV Infection: Accident and Emergency Departments
(asked on 22nd April 2024) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to publicise opt-out testing for HIV to those attending emergency departments.
HIV testing is essential, as it allows those with HIV to be offered lifesaving treatment, and prevents its onward transmission. This is why we have committed to scaling up HIV testing in our HIV Action Plan. As part of the HIV Action Plan, NHS England made an initial £20 million available over three years to 2025, for HIV opt-out testing in 34 emergency departments (EDs) in areas with extremely high HIV prevalence, areas with five or more HIV cases per 1,000 residents aged 15 to 59 years old. The plan also included Blackpool in 2019, at 4.9 HIV cases per 1,000 residents aged 15 to 59 years old, and the whole of London, including some local areas with high HIV prevalence supported with additional funding from NHS London.
In November 2024, the Government announced new research, commissioned through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, to evaluate an expansion of blood-borne virus opt-out testing, including HIV, in 47 additional EDs in local areas of England with high HIV prevalence. These would be areas with two to five HIV cases per 1,000 residents aged 15 to 59 years old, and would include the Wexham Park Hospital and Frimley Park Hospital in Slough. The research project is currently in the set-up phase, and funding will support 12 months of testing for each ED, although it is at the discretion of individual sites when the testing will commence. It is the responsibility of individual EDs to make service users aware of the availability of HIV and other blood-borne virus opt-out testing, as appropriate.
HIV opt-out testing in EDs in areas with extremely high HIV prevalence has shown very encouraging outcomes so far, and at 21 months has delivered 2.6 million HIV tests, and found more than 1,000 people with undiagnosed or untreated HIV, including those who would not have been found via other testing routes. Making HIV testing routine in a front-line health care setting such as an ED, raises the awareness of HIV and helps remove the stigma associated with HIV testing.
We are also working to improve workforce training in the National Health Service to increase HIV awareness, and in collaboration with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), to continue to monitor the levels of stigma and discrimination experienced by people living with HIV within the health and social care system, as well as within community settings. The UKHSA published the positive voices survey report in early 2024, which presents key indicators for HIV stigma, and is available at the following link:
Further work is underway to develop key indicators for monitoring quality of life and stigma for people living with HIV.