HIV Commission — House of Commons, 2020-12-01
Topic: Health
Stephen Charles Brine (Independent, Unknown): Absolutely. The big society groups have been so important to the work of the commission. We have heard from many of them and I know they are very important north of the border, so I thank the hon. Lady for putting them on the record With the cavalry—the science—in place and the policy agreed, we needed a practical plan. For 18 months, the commission met, listened, learned and deliberated. Its recommendations are clear and I will close with a few of them. The first benchmark is to get new instances and the number of people undiagnosed down by 80% by 2025. Most of those will be in communities we already work with to reduce HIV transmissions, but the last 20% most likely will not. They will be hard to find, but the rewards will be great Secondly, we want Ministers to report to Parliament annually on the 2025 target and the 2030 goal. This will focus minds and track progress. To make these kinds of advances, we need the promised HIV action plan in very short order Thirdly, HIV testing—this is the crucial bit—must become normalised in the system. No longer should 250,000 people go to a sexual health clinic and not be offered a test, but we must go so much further. When someone presents at A&E or registers with a GP and the NHS or whoever else is taking blood, an HIV test must be carried out—so not opt-in, but opt-out. The default assumption is that it will happen We know that that can happen. Maternity services have shown that it is possible. Midwives test pregnant women for HIV, in non-judgmental settings, and there is a 99% take-up and therefore near zero vertical transmission to newborn babies. It could be the same elsewhere if we get this right, but there are many challenges in doing that. The funding is with local government. The testing needs to happen in primary care as well as secondary, but it is all possible with political will. In short, it is a policy of test, test, test, and if ever there was a time when we can successfully land that message, it is surely at the end of this ghastly 2020 Underneath these recommendations lies a 20-point action plan to bring all this to life. Rarely has a commission been presented with such an implementation-friendly set of actions. If the Government are minded—and they have one or two other things on their plate right now—they could do a lot worse than copy and paste our findings into the first draft of the aforementioned HIV action plan. Each action is assessed for its impact on health inequalities and its contribution to fighting stigma. It looks to everyone who is and could be affected by HIV, and that was important to us. We are not denying that some of this will require investment, but I think that it is investment worth making, because bluntly, it will change and save lives, and we have shown how to do that after the Government asked us to If the moral case does not persuade people listening to this debate, hard cash might. Modelling by the Elton John AIDS Foundation found that over £200,000 in future healthcare costs were saved per person who was diagnosed and linked into the right treatment and care, so, not unlike the dynamic we face in cancer care, early diagnosis is the magic key in HIV as well Finally, to the wider sector, I say this: I hope that we have done you proud in our work with the HIV Commission. You got us here. We now need to come together to get this done. To my colleagues in the House tonight and listening elsewhere who will join us in campaigning for exactly what we are asking, I say: many thanks in advance. We will be in contact We could end HIV transmission on our watch. How amazing would that be to that 12-year-old schoolboy and many others who saw that advert in 1986? Let us not pass up the opportunity and, with this man as Secretary of State, I do not think we will.