Tell Your MP – No Prescription Charges with HIV

posted: 22/07/2010

It's prescription charging decision time. We need your help. Now the Department of Health and other parts of government are making the spending decisions which will be part of the Autumn Spending Review. This includes deciding whether to stop charging people with conditions including HIV, MS, Parkinson’s and heart disease for the prescriptions people need to stay well.

Money may be tight but that is no excuse for continuing the gross unfairness of England's prescription charging system. Prescription charges have already been abolished for everyone, not just people with long-term conditions, in Wales and Northern Ireland; Scotland will abolish the last £3 of their charge in 2011.
 

Campaigners like you have already helped persuade MPs to support this campaign to end prescription charges for people with long-term conditions, including HIV. In May, the Government's independent review of prescription charges showed how this can be achieved. Now, before Parliament goes on its summer holiday and the Autumn Spending Review appears in October, we need a last push - please ask your MP to support the campaign.

It's easy to act

Please click here to ask your MP in England to sign a Parliamentary motion calling on the government to scrap prescription charges for people with long-term conditions this Autumn.
 

Thank you for your support.
 

More information about the prescription charges review here

Information on help you can get with prescription costs here
 

Prescription Charges Coalition There are 22 members of the Prescription Charges Coalition, including Terrence Higgins Trust who represent the HIV sector:
Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group, Arthritis Care, Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus, Asthma UK, Behcets Syndrome Society, British Heart Foundation, Diabetes UK, Disability Alliance, FibroAction, Klinefelter’s Syndrome Association, Mind, Motor Neurone Disease Association, MS Society, National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society, National Association for Colitis and Crohn’s Disease, National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society, Parkinson’s UK, Pernicious Anaemia Society, Rethink, The Stroke Association, Skin Care Campaign, Terrence Higgins Trust
 

Manchester Pride Fringe Event

posted: 20/07/2010

As part of the Manchester Pride Fringe Festival on Tuesday 24 August George House Trust are holding an evening of thought provoking entertainment at the Frog and Bucket Comedy Club on Oldham Street.

Continuing our 25th anniversary celebrations and reflections, the evening is centred around HIV activism past and present, and will feature speakers and artists involved in HIV activism in its different forms over the years.

On the evening we will be joined by the ever fabulous Jonathan Mayor, long standing prolific activist Peter Tatchell, the founding fathers of George House Trust, drag king extraordinaire Valentino King and the captivating performance poet Gerry Potter.

Tickets

Tickets are £3, or £1 concession for unwaged, and are availble through wegottickets.com This link takes you straight to the page for this event.

Doors open at 7:30pm and the event will start at 8pm sharp.

Together we'll explore what activism has been, is and should be, and most importantly - why it's still so desperately needed. Come and join us for this highly entertaining, engaging and inspirational event over the Pride festival.

Frog and Bucket, 102 Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 ILJ  - at the top of Oldham Street near the junction with Great Ancoats Street - StreetMap

Gay Couples HIV Campaign

posted: 29/06/2010

Gay men in relationships are the focus of a new HIV prevention campaign by Terrence Higgins Trust. Men in couples are left out of many HIV prevention campaigns, which focus more on HIV risks in casual sexual encounters. But a good number of HIV transmissions happen in couples.

Condoms, talking and testing

This new campaign reminds men of two things they can do to protect themselves and their boyfriend – carry on using condoms with each other or, if they want to ditch condoms, both test for HIV first.
 

Toothbrush talk

The poster has two toothbrushes in a glass to show a relationship, and asks men to think about the question 'When you find a boyfriend, can you lose the condoms?' The ad advises 'Use condoms unless you’ve both tested. And keep using them if you’re having risky sex with others.' The campaign knows that not all couples are monogamous (even if they think they are), and that sex outside the relationship is how HIV joins some relationships.

Talking matters

The idea is to get men talking about one of the most important aspects of their relationship: their sex life. The message to couples is a clear one: condoms are one of the best ways to protect against HIV and testing is the only sure way to know both your status and your partner’s. So before you have unprotected sex, why not talk first?
 

Alan Wardle, Head of Health Promotion at THT said: “We know that for some men in a relationship, condoms can be one of the first things to go. Why do you need them if you’re in a relationship? Yet the fact is, if you’ve not talked to your partner about their sexual history and yours before you ditch the condoms, you could be at risk. We know that some men may find it difficult to discuss their past sex life with their partner, but if you don’t talk about it how will you know?”
 

Outside of London, men are more likely to see the campaign on gaydar. Mostly the campaign will be seen in ads in the London gay press, and in posters and postcards in London bars, saunas, STI clinics and community centres, because it is funded by and for London.

Positive and negative couples?

The campaign assumes neither man is diagnosed with HIV. Where one man has HIV and the other doesn’t, or the other man hasn’t tested recently, help is definitely available and the choices can be different.

George House Trust is happy to advise in confidence and tell you about the support we and other HIV services in NW England offer.

Find out more by email

or telephone 0161 274 4499

Source 
 

Asylum Right to Work Campaign

posted: 28/06/2010

People applying for asylum are not normally allowed to work. If people seeking asylum are still waiting for the first decision on their claim for 12 months or more, then they can ask for permission to work.

George House Trust and the community HIV sector strongly support extending the right to work after six months. This was one of the recommendations in NAT’s 2006 report HIV and Poverty: Findings from the Crusaid Hardship Fund. Working is a really simple and effective way to help reducing poverty among asylum seekers and show respect for people’s autonomy and personal dignity.

If the government changed the rules, taxpayers will be saved from paying benefits to support people who are able to and want to work, but aren’t allowed to. It means that working asylum seekers won’t need to turn to charity to get by. And those who are allowed to stay in the UK will find it much easier to become part of British society if they’ve already been given a chance to work.

Asylum seekers are amongst the vulnerable people in our society, and many are affected by HIV. Over a quarter of Crusaid Hardship Fund grants between 2006 and 2009 were paid to asylum seekers. Some of these applicants received Section 95 or Section 4 support, some relied on friends and family, and others had no support at all. All asylum seekers with HIV experience severe poverty, and poverty always has bad effects on people’s health.

You can support the campaign by emailing your MP and asking your MP to sign a declaration in favour of giving asylum seekers the right to work after 6 months. Simply enter your postcode in the box at this 38 Degrees campaign webpage 

image: Zimbabwean BlackBook

Saving AIDS Support Grant

posted: 26/05/2010

Before the election, the end of ring-fenced AIDS Support Grant for local councils was announced. The new coalition government has now said it will phase out all types of ring-fenced grants for councils.
 

National AIDS Trust has now written to Paul Burstow (Lib Dem, Sutton & Cheam in Surrey), the new Minister for State for Social Care Services, setting out the need to continue to ring-fence AIDS Support Grant after 2011.

It has also written to Anne Milton, the new Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Public Health.

The new Government has emphasised the importance of public health interventions, and NAT stress the potential public health implications of removing of the ring-fence. Because of this, and given the recent commitment to phase out ring-fenced grants for local authorities, NAT also suggests that the Grant could be paid to PCTs instead, rather than local authorities.
 

Add Your Voice

Organisations and individuals may wish to write to Paul Burstow, or their local MP, to emphasise the vital role of the ring-fenced ASG. NAT’s letter to the minister can be used by people and organisations to make the point that the ring-fence is still needed.
 

Any letters to the minister should reflect the local situation. You might emphasise these points:

• The important role ASG funding currently plays in funding local services
• The impact the loss of the ring fence would have on funding for HIV orgnaisations (it is far less likely that local authorities will continue to fund services without the ring fence - what would happen to people if support is no longer available?)
• Some case studies showing the difference the Grant makes to the lives of individuals and families in your area

NAT 2009 report on The AIDS Support Grant – Making a Difference?

 
Latest Department of Health details on ASG allocations for each council in England and how it should be spent  
 

NW England
AIDS Support Grant 2009-2010 and total HIV population by social services district
download our handy guide for NW England here

The AIDS Support Grant allocations for the current year, April 2010 – March 2011, have not been published – it should be listed as a circular here

Here is gathered information from Freedom of Information requests on AIDS Support Grant in different parts of England 

text of NAT letter to Minister
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