University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) is teaming up with HIV Prevention England for National HIV Testing Week to encourage high-risk individuals to take the test.

The initiative is being promoted across England and is aimed in particular at gay men and African people.

UHB is hoping to reach the people in these groups who don’t normally test – but who should as they are the people most at risk of getting HIV.

Awareness will be raised through staff and promotional material available to patients at its clinics in Birmingham.

As well as clinics held in the Outpatients Department at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, the Trust also runs a drop-in centre at Boots in Birmingham city centre and the Whittall Street Clinic, the second busiest GUM/sexual health clinic in the UK.

Dr Keith Radcliffe, Clinical Service Lead for Sexual Health Services at UHB, said: “It is vital that those most at risk of contracting HIV get tested earlier and more frequently.

“We are supporting this awareness campaign and hope it results in even more patients being welcomed into our clinics to seek reassurance or an early diagnosis that could significantly improve their outcome.”   

 In particular, HIV Testing Week aims to:

• Increase the numbers of gay men and African people taking an HIV test
• Raise awareness in the gay and African communities of the importance of testing
• Increase the number of opportunities to take a test at clinics and in the community

Achieving these goals will help to reduce the number of people who are diagnosed late with HIV as an early HIV diagnosis is easier to manage and reduces the risk of it being passed on to other people.

The awareness week will be held from 22-29 November 2013. It is the second year for the promotional campaign and will run in the lead-up to World AIDS Day on 1 December 2013.