Fast-Track Cities London attended the BHIVA Spring Conference between 29 April and 1 May at the ICC in Birmingham. We took a stand at the event to ensure we were able to connect with the wide range of HIV professionals from NHS and community organisations that were attending from across the UK.
Rather than focusing exclusively on our work in London, we provided an opportunity for other UK Fast Track Cities to share resources and use the stand as a meeting point. Fast Track Cymru joined us for the whole conference and we were able to secure a place for the new Community Representative from Fast Trach Cities Leeds.
We had the opportunity to present two posters at the conference. The first reported on our work to pilot peer support delivery in several London clinics and link to voluntary sector support. The second poster reviewed current peer support provision within the London HIV sector (both NHS and voluntary sector) as a way to start mapping these services across the capital. Both of these projects have been instrumental in shaping our current Getting to Zero programme, which aims to integrate peer support workers into every London HIV clinic and link to external support services to address health inequalities.
As well as our own direct engagement work, there were a number of posters, presentations and workshops from our partners that related to our programmes (including an excellent workshop from the HIV Confident team), making it a hugely successful event.
Our next stop will be the National HIV Nurses Association Conference in Liverpool in June.