Case study:
North West London
The GPs in North West London ICB area are working on a project trialling a local service with proactive management in primary care for people living with HIV. This has been funded by Fast-Track Cities London.
The service will identify people living with HIV in a practice and ensure their care meets the standard of care set out by the British HIV Association (BHIVA).
GP Champions:
Dr Dilip Bassi
Dr Sam Gheiace and
Dr Mark Papp
Secondary Care HIV Consultant Lead:
Dr Nicola Mackie
Pilot Aims
The North West London team are working towards tackling local challenges with:
- GPs reaching out to people living with HIV in their area as well as working with HIV Ambassadors from THT to reduce stigma.
- Networking events to share insights across primary care, connect primary and secondary care clinicians and work with the British HIV Association.
- Teaching sessions to improve preventative care of cardiovascular disease in for people living with HIV.
- An HIV champions newsletter to raise awareness of the programme and improve communications about HIV across primary care.
Guidance and training
The GP champions have created an HIV guidance document and developed training which has been offered across primary care.
It includes topics such as:
- Accurately coding the HIV diagnosis where this is known to the GP.
- Maintaining a record of current HIV antiretrovirals in the GP medication list.
- Implementing cardiovascular disease prevention with statins in people over 40 years, with guidance from the HIV clinic.
- Cervical smear testing annually for people living with HIV.
- Pneumococcal vaccination for all people living with HIV, with guidance about special circumstances.
- Fracture risk assessment for all people living with HIV over 50 years, with guidance from the HIV clinic.
- Testing for HIV when people present with indicator conditions or symptoms of HIV in GP practices.
- Testing for HIV at new patient registration and where other blood tests are taken in North West London
- Supporting access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP)
Impact
- To date the team have delivered training sessions to 180 GPs to reduce HIV stigma, increase testing, and improve HIV care pathways.
- They have established better communication links between GPs and HIV clinics, which is improving care for patients.
Feedback from the GP training delivered by the team throughout the year:
“Great use of the patient case studies to discuss things that aren’t just cut and dry”.
“Very informative from a GP perspective”
“Good patient case studies, open session, very thorough and good presentation”
“Informative presentation, speakers explained everything clearly, kept us engaged with patient case studies”
Evaluation and data
The GP champion programme is being evaluated by Kings College London, and we will be presenting the pilot data in the summer of 2025.
If you would like any further information, please contact the Fast-Track Cities London programme team at rf-tr.londonftci@nhs.net.
