Since its launch in 2014, the driving force behind the Fast Track Cities Initiative has been its people – a partnership of dedicated and passionate individuals working within the HIV sector as well as Londoners living with HIV all committed to ending HIV by 2030. By sharing thoughts, ideas and expertise drawn from experience, our partnership has shaped the direction of the Fast Track Cities Programme – and will continue to do so.
Over the past two months, we’ve held several workshops around key themes and topics. At the end of April, the Quality Improvement and Evaluation teams came together Voluntary and Community Sector Organisations and NHS partners to develop approaches that would support and drive forward the aims of the Getting to Zero (GtZ) Collaborative and achieve the best outcomes for people living with HIV, building the services and support they need. The idea is that, as part of the GtZ Collaborative, each project will be able to trial ways to improve care pathways and services and learn from each other’s approaches as much their own.
Our second workshop, held in May, was delivered in partnership with the UK Health Security Agency and focused on developing indicators to monitor stigma and quality of life for people living with HIV. A variety of stakeholders and partners came together for an incredibly valuable day exploring existing stigma and quality of life metrics, how they are currently used, and potential new approaches to effectively measure quality of life for and the impact of stigma for people living with HIV.
There was a strong emphasis on the expertise and lived experiences of people living with HIV. The outputs of the workshop will inform Fast Track Cities London and UKHSA metrics and form part of the national HIV Action Plan monitoring and evaluation framework.