Campaign - Cut Late Diagnosis

posted: 03/12/2009

Late diagnosed HIV is bad news in NW England – we have England’s worst regional rate for late HIV diagnosis. Across the NW an average of 35.9% are diagnosed late, compared with the national average of 31%.
 

It matters because up to a third of people with HIV are diagnosed late, after the immune system has already been damaged by the virus. Late diagnosis makes

• treatment more complex 
• people more ill,
• life significantly shorter - and
• accidental HIV transmission more likely, because they don't know they have it.

e-mail your PCT

We're asking you to write to your PCT and encourage them to cut late diagnosis of HIV, so people stay healthy for longer.

Postcode to email easily
If you enter your details and postcode, the SHout-Loud website creates a custom letter about late diagnosed HIV in your own PCT. For Manchester, it tells the PCT that 38% are diagnosed late when the national average is only 31%, and that means a lot of people are diagnosed late here.

Click on the link below to take part, and remember to check the box to join ‘SHout Loud’ so you receive updates on other campaign actions.

Bit by bit, we can improve sexual health locally.

Click here to write to your local PCT

It may take a few moments for the e-mail letter to appear – please be patient!
 

Why bother?
More and more decisions about health services are now taken at a local level, and decision-makers have to take the views of local communities into account. The SHout Loud (Sexual Health out loud) aims to help you affect local decisions and improve sexual health in our community.
 

NW England – the late diagnosis hotspot
The late diagnosis rate varies dramatically between PCTs in NW England, and the figures are often distorted because the numbers diagnosed in some PCTs each year are very small, but North Lancashire has twice the national average rate (62% late diagnosed).

Late diagnosis figures for each Primary Care Trust in NW England

Worrying is Manchester ,because it has by far the largest number diagnosed late last year, 54 out of 142 people, 38% late. But this is next door to its twin city Salford, where just 23.9% were late (11 out of 46). It is difficult to understand how living on one side or the other of the River Irwell can make such a difference.
 

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