News & Media > Council motion on HIV testing

Council motion on HIV testing

Wednesday 22 October 2014

The Halve It campaign on HIV testing is a policy-based coalition determined to tackle the continued public health challenges posed by HIV. Halve It’s aims are to halve the proportion of people diagnosed late and living with undiagnosed HIV, through the scaling up of HIV testing services in line with national guidance and through the implementation of the Public Health Outcomes Framework.

The British HIV Association (BHIVA) is a member of the coalition, alongside 20 other members and observer members representing patient groups, advocates, clinicians, government bodies and industry. In recent months, the campaign has attracted the support of the Leader of the Opposition, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister, in addition to many Councillors, MPs and Peers across the country.

Having seen the development of comprehensive national guidance on HIV testing over the last five years, the Halve It coalition is keen to ensure that the recommendations within these guidelines are robustly implemented at a local level, with the strong support of local government. To this end, we have worked with councillor colleagues to draft a council motion on HIV testing, which we hope to pass in all 64 local authorities with high HIV prevalence (>2 per 1000 residents) in the run up to World AIDS Day this year – Monday 1 December 2014.

The motion can be accessed here.
 

We would be delighted if you would join us in achieving this goal:


1. Please share the draft council motion with your councillor colleagues and help us to implement it in your local authority and in others across the country.

2. Please contact the Halve It campaign secretariat on [email protected] to inform us of your progress with passing the motion in your local authority.

3. Please share your support for the motion on social media using the hashtags #HalveIt and #EarlyTestingSavesLives and a link to this document: http://bit.ly/1yCho0D


In closing we would like to emphasise the importance that we place on the role of local action in improving access to HIV services, and hope that you are able to find a way to join us on this important journey. Ultimately we know we can save lives and money too if we can work together to Halve It.