GP Guide - Migrants' Health

posted: 26/01/2011

The Migrant Health Guide is a free new online “one stop information shop” for GPs and practice nurses who are working with migrants.

It comes from the Health Protection Agency who have produced it because migrants health needs are often more complex than for other people. HIV is included.

The online guide gives doctors and nurses easy access to the facts, so they can improve their patients’ care and quality of life.
 

Although most migrants to the UK are healthy, TB and HIV and other conditions are more common.

The guide supports diagnosing and managing a range of typical migrant health conditions. Early diagnosis and prompt treatment of HIV and other conditions is important for the health of the individual and to reduce onward transmission.
 

Produced by experts working with primary care practitioners, it comes with the blessings of the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Nursing.

Key Recommendations

• Know your local migrant population and their rights to care
• Teach patients how the NHS works
• Assess new patients using the checklist and their country page
• Vaccinate and immunise as normal
• Watch and test for infectious diseases and conditions typical of their country
• Check and advise on any plans to visit friends and relatives abroad.

The Migrant Health Guide has

• detailed information for each country
• tools for assessing migrant patients – new patients, patients with symptoms, identifying more vulnerable patients
• how to talking about the NHS with migrants – explaining it, migrants rights to treatment, languages and interpreters, cultural awareness
• sections about migrant health conditions (including HIV), infectious diseases, vaccinations

Migrant Health Guide

HIV in Primary Care : The best HIV guide for GPs and primary care is (free download) HIV for non-specialists, by MedFash.

HIV+ Gay Man Returns - to Jail

posted: 22/02/2010

A gay man who fled to France after being convicted for recklessly infecting his former boyfriend with HIV was arrested when he returned to the UK for cancer treatment. Mark James, 50, was on the run from police for three-and-a-half years after becoming the first gay man in the UK found guilty of "recklessly" passing on the virus.
 

Hounslow, London police arrested him in a hospital bed in Brighton on February 10th, where he had gone to receive treatment for an aggressive form of lymphoma.
 

4 years 2 months

Mark James, who had lived with the man who became infected in Brentford, London, was sentenced on the 12th February at Isleworth Crown Court to four years and two months. He had pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm before he fled the country. Judge Jonathan Lowen said: “During the three-and-a-half years while you roamed out and about, you represented a substantial risk of serious harm to members of the public were you again minded to commit the shocking crime to which I sentenced you in your absence on August 4th, 2006. The victim of your offence has suffered a great deal of extra anxiety and stress, and I have been told it has affected his health, all while you enjoyed your undeserved freedom.”
 

The court heard that James spent nearly all the time he was at large in Narbonne, south-west France. James, who lived in Park Road, Burgess Hill, in Sussex, before his conviction, was diagnosed with lymphoma in December last year. He received two courses of chemotherapy in France, and contacted the British Embassy and Foreign Commonwealth Office before flying to Gatwick on January 18th.
 

Daniel Robinson, defending, said: “He made no secret of his status to the immigration authorities on my instructions, and was allowed through immigration control because, I’m told, his treatment was viewed as a priority. He suffers from the cancer in an obvious way, he has a large tumour to the right hand side of his neck which has caused some facial paralysis.”
 

Detective Inspector Mike Sunman, who led the investigation, said: “It is obviously quite sad to see the condition he is in, but it was appropriate that the sentence be served.”
 

George House Trust comment: this was the first gay man to be convicted of reckless transmission in the UK. He pleaded guilty and then tried to change his plea to not guilty when it became clear that scientific evidence cannot prove who has passed on HIV. The judge refused this request to change his plea.

It is always critical to get the best legal advice from lawyers with experience in these cases - ask us or Terrence Higgins Trust Direct. There have been very few cases recently because it is a very hard offence to prove when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) follows its HIV policy and guidelines. This prosecution happened before the CPS Guidelines were published.

Source