We cannot let those at risk of HIV be the silent victims of Cameron's NHS chaos

07 Apr 2011
Whilst David Cameron’s car crash NHS reorganisation careers on, the human cost to the Tories’ health chaos is becoming clear.
 
One set of victims are sufferers from HIV. In recent years public awareness of the condition has declined. The public has assumed that new treatments have solved the problem of infection therefore leading to fewer infections.  This is just not the case.
 
There is still no cure and far from rates decreasing, HIV has, through a silent epidemic, developed into one of the nation’s fastest growing health conditions.
 
However, thanks to major medical advances in the last 15 years, HIV is no longer a death sentence to those who access treatment early enough.
 
David Cameron’s NHS massacre will soon affect the lives and wellbeing of people up and down the country. But it has become clear, over the last fortnight, is that those people at risk of HIV will be marginalised and targeted specifically, through savage cuts to HIV prevention work in key Primary Care Trusts.
 
These cuts will turn back the clock on HIV prevention work, even though it is still the case that 50% of people are already diagnosed late. The NHS chaos will also bring about the fragmentation of crucial commissioning work across the country.
 
David Cameron’s Big Society does not seem to include those people at risk from HIV. 
  
Whilst HIV does disproportionately affect particular groups in the UK, and it is right that our attention and resources respond appropriately, it does increasingly affect every member of the British public.  In fact, it is gay men who are least likely to be diagnosed late.
 
HIV prevention services in London face a funding cut of about 43% and yet London accounts for half of all people in the UK living with HIV.
 
A number of groups, including GMFA, Terrence Higgins Trust and PACE, were told last week that the NHS primary care trusts which help to fund their work would be slashing their budgets.  The charities use the funds for a range of HIV prevention initiatives, such as support, meetings and outreach work.
 
The groups are part of the Pan London HIV Prevention Programme, which is funded by PCTs and commissions a range of small organisations to tackle HIV in the capital.
 
They were told by Kensington and Chelsea PCT, which manages the programme, that although 21 PCTs in London wish to continue the work, only six-month contracts with reduced funding can be offered at present because PCTs are “not able to continue to commit at commensurate financial levels going forward”.
 
To threaten and marginalise HIV prevention work with these cuts, without any kind of impact assessment, is appalling.
 
A range of organisations and public figures have condemned these cuts.  Pop Singer Elton John says he has a date in the diary to meet Prime Minister David Cameron to discuss this.
 
It is time to give a voice to those people put at risk by this silent epidemic, who now face being marginalised by David Cameron’s chaotic health programme.


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