News Round Up
posted: 19/05/2008
Sickness Benefits Are Changing, What Next in Prosecutions, UK African Prevention Plan, Positive Action, Is
Incapacity Benefit Changes October
Everyone now receiving Incapacity Benefit (or Income Support for ill-health) will have to take a "rigorous" test to see if they are capable of working, starting in April 2010. The government says it wants to shift towards a sickness benefits system that encourages people to work if they can.
The first step will be in late October this year. Incapacity Benefit (and Income Support) will be replaced with a new benefit for people making fresh benefit claims for sickness. The new benefit is Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). Then, between April 2010 and 2013, everyone already on Incapacity Benefit (Income Support) will also face the tougher tests that will be used for Employment and Support Allowance.
Employment and Support Allowance involves a 13 week series of hurdles. This starts with a physical and mental activities test which is much tougher than the one already used for Incapacity Benefit. This looks at what you can't do. You need to score 15 points at least to stay on ESA. Score under 15 points, and you will have to claim Job Seekers Allowance.
The next ESA hurdle is a test to see if you have a "limited capability for work-related activity" - there are 46 categories. Fit at least one of these and you will be left to your own devices in the ESA "support" stream.
Everyone else is put in the "work-related activity" stream of ESA and has to go through a "work-focused health-related assessment." This looks at what you can do rather than the things that you can't do. A "capability report" is produced and that is used in the first work-focused interview, about 8 weeks after you claim. There are then monthly work-focused interviews (six in total) aimed at getting people back into work. Free factsheets available at www.disabilityalliance.org/esa.htm
DLA special rules - Top Twin Tip
The review of all people paid the highest rate for care under the "special rules" is continuing to bite. Don't ignore the review form, DBD551. Get expert help - it's not a form for DIY filling in. Our welfare rights expert will help. Her top tip is to imagine you have a HIV negative twin who is otherwise the same as you, but is fit and perfectly well. Now keep a diary to show our welfare rights expert. The diary should spell out how your day to day life is different from your pretend negative twin. S/he won't have treatment side effects, unpredictable nausea and explosive runs, have days too exhausted to get out of bed etc. No detail is too graphic or small. And in the diary list any drug side effects and all the medications you take, even asprins.
Prosecutions Policy - what’s next?
HIV sector experts met after the Crown Prosecution Service published its prosecutions guide for transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STI).
The fundamental weakness is the guide doesn't name HIV, any other STI, nor spell out unambiguously that using condoms is always a reasonable defence. Instead the policy is general and short on detail. We predict the recent run of failed prosecutions will continue because it doesn’t give their own prosecutors the clear guidance they need on the evidence required by courts for fair verdicts. The CPS has just abandoned another case - against a gay man in Cardiff.
A UK consensus statement from medical experts on the evidence needs in prosecutions for the transmission of each STI should help. This would deal with transmission risks, reasonable ways to reduce these, and interpreting the clinical and scientific evidence of transmission. The British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASSH) might be asked to provide this. We also need updated best practice guidance for clinics on better handling of contact tracing, and on keeping clinical records about sexual behaviour and the advice given.
Undetectable = Uninfectious?
The Swiss National AIDS Commission’s claim in January created an international storm. They said that people with an undetectable viral load (under 40 copies/ml) for at least six months, keeping to their treatments properly, and with no other sexually transmitted infections, cannot pass on HIV sexually. The latest issue of HIV Treatment Update from NAM examines this claim in detail. The Swiss are wrong, but it is true that people meeting all three Swiss conditions are not very likely to pass on HIV.
The evidence the Swiss relied on comes from just three small studies with different HIV status heterosexual couples - under 200 couples. This is nowhere near enough people to be sure HIV won’t be passed on. A bigger study with nearer 2000 couples has now started. And the Swiss advice definitely doesn’t apply to anal sex, because the transmission risks are higher.
African HIV Prevention Plan
The UN Special Envoy for HIV and AIDS in Africa, Elizabeth Mataka, launched the first HIV prevention plan for Africans in England, at the recent Under the Baobab Tree conference. Titled "The knowledge, the will and the power: a plan of action to meet the HIV prevention needs of Africans living in England", it can be downloaded from Sigma Research at http://tinyurl.com/563mpj
Positive Action - making it happen
Feedback from the March Positive Action Conference of people living with HIV begins at George House Trust on Tuesday 8 July. Copies of the report of the conference will then be available.
Positive Action was a place to debate the hot issues, develop community leadership for increased influence and action, and establish sustainable networks of people living with HIV. A George House Trust service user co-chaired the conference opening session and four people, including one from George House Trust, made a presentation from the conference to clinicians at the recent British HIV Association Conference in Belfast.
The top topics at Positive Action were influencing healthcare services, employment and HIV, HIV 'education' (in schools and public awareness), stigma, discrimination and disclosure, and prosecutions for HIV transmission.
Prize Winning Graphic Novel
Blue Pills - is the life story of a family coming to terms with HIV, powerfully told in graphics. When "Blue Pills" was first published in the author’s native Switzerland, it sold more than 20,000 copies, an extraordinary feat for a 192-page book drawn entirely in black and white graphics. It’s won prizes at Europe's most prestigious comic book festivals and is now out in the first English translation. It costs under £9 at Amazon http://tinyurl.com/276epp
Permalink