Events

HIV Stigma Symposium

On Friday 15 March, HIV Prevention England hosted the HIV Stigma Symposium at The ICC in Birmingham. We had the pleasure of hearing from fantastic speakers representing community organisations, healthcare, academia, policy, and people with lived experience. The aim of this event was to foster solution-focused conversations and share learning from different projects happening across England.

The HPE team would like to extend our thanks to everyone who attended the event, especially the speakers, panellists, chairs and our partners who supported with the planning of the event.

Programme and Presentation slides

Morning sessions

What is stigma – presented by Nicola Jones, HIV Prevention England

Positive Peers – presented by Rachel Greaves, Positive Peers

Stigma and stigma reduction in different communities

Stepping Up – George House Trust – presented by Adela Senkubuge and Yvonne Richards-Cooper, George House Trust

Their Story, Your Choice – presented by Takudzwa Mukiwa, HIV Prevention England

The Ribbons HIV education legacy project – presented by Garry Jones, Designer & founder of The Ribbons B.A.H.M

HIV testing as an enabler for stigma reduction – presented by Jose Trueba and Carlos Corredor, Aymara

Stigma in health and social care, employment, and statutory services

Tackling HIV Stigma in Healthcare using a University Approach – presented by Aled Osborne, Brigstowe

HIV in the Workplace – A guide for Employers and Employees– presented by Joe Tanzer, BHA for Equality

Stigma in healthcare – presented by Liz Okecha, Consultant in Sexual Health & HIV/Clinical Lead

Unseen Frontlines – presented by Lt Cdr Oli Brown MBE, Royal Navy

Policy and Practice

Tackling stigma through stroytelling – HIV Ambassadors – presented by Henn Mossery-Golan and Eugene Lynch, Terrence Higgins Trust, Pank Sethi and LeaSuwanna Griffith, London HIV Ambassadors

Derby pledge to end HIV – presented by Helen Stanhope and Rachel Coulton, Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust

Researching and Responding to Organisational Stigma – presented by Daron Oram and Annie Howard, National AIDS Trust

Changing policy challenging discrimination – presented by Daniel Fluskey, National AIDS Trust, Dr Joseph Heskin, Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust, and Debbie Laycock, Terrence Higgins Trust

Next steps for stigma reduction

Thank you to our panellists for their participation in this discussion:

Ash Dickson, Mental Health and Wellbeing Coordinator, Yorkshire MESMAC

Dr Catherine Dodds, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Head of Centre for Health and Social Care Research, University of Bristol

Memory Sachikonye, UK-CAB Coordinator and Co-editor of Our Stories told by us: Celebrating the African Contribution to the UK HIV response

Dr Joseph Heskin, Consultant in GenitoUrinary and HIV Medicine, Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust

Olivia De Achaval, Team Leader Sexual and Reproductive Health Policy, Department of Health and Social Care

Pank Sethi, GMI Partnership Manager – prevention and testing, Positive East

See all our previous event blog posts.

Past events

Trends and Developments in HIV Testing (webinar)

This webinar covers the latest data from UKHSA and an update on Emergency Department opt-out testing.

Hear from expert speakers Dr Alison Brown from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and Steve Hindle, Project Manager for opt-out HIV testing at NHS England.

Watch webinar video and download slides

Latest HIV prevention, treatment and cure news from AIDS 2022 (webinar)

AIDS 2022, the 24th International AIDS Conference, took place from 29 July to 2 August 2022. HPE collaborated with NAM aidsmap to share a summary of the latest HIV prevention, treatment and cure news from the conference in a short webinar originally broadcast on 9 November 2022.

Watch webinar video and download slides

HIV Prevention England Conference 2022

On Friday 30 September, HIV Prevention England welcomed delegates from across the country to our 5th biennial national prevention conference in London. The event brought together colleagues from charities and community-based organisations, commissioners and local authority public health teams, clinicians and researchers.

See the full programme and download slides

The importance of Can’t Pass It On/Undetectable=Untransmittable (U=U) and how to discuss this with your patients

We’re telling everyone: people living with HIV and on effective treatment can’t pass it on.

This online event, which took place on Monday 23 May 2022, featured Professor Alison Rodger (Professor of Infectious Diseases and HIV at University College London), Dr Melissa Gardner (GP and Director of the social enterprise Sexual Health in Practice (SHIP), Bruce Richman (Founding Executive Director of the Prevention Access Campaign which launched the U=U movement.), Dr Michael Brady (Medical Director at Terrence Higgins Trust) and a panel of people living with HIV.

Latest HIV prevention, treatment and cure news from CROI 2022

The Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) took place from 12 to 16 February 2022.

HPE collaborated with NAM aidsmap to share a summary of the latest HIV prevention, treatment and cure news and scientific data from the conference in this short webinar, which took place on Tuesday 1 March 2022.

Watch webinar archive and download slides

National HIV testing trends and gaps during COVID-19: Latest data from UKHSA

Date: Thursday 10 February 2022

This National HIV Testing Week, join us for an expert webinar with Dr Alison Brown and Dr Nicky Connor from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), where they share the latest insights from the newly-published HIV testing and new diagnoses surveillance data.

Find out more

European Testing Week 2020: Testing vulnerable populations in COVID-19 restricted contexts

Together with European Testing Week, HIV Prevention England hosted a webinar on Monday 23 November 2020 looking at testing vulnerable populations during the pandemic.

Preparing for equitable access to HIV PrEP in England

On Wednesday 4 November HPE hosted a webinar ‘Preparing for equitable access to HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in England’ with guest speakers from BHA for Equality, Africa Advocacy Foundation and Prepster.

One out of five of every HIV diagnosis in the UK is in the Black African community, yet less than 5% of individuals accessing PrEP in the UK are Black African. Looking at PrEP awareness, the core precursor for access, knowledge is very low for this cohort, especially compared to other affected communities.

The webinar provided decision-makers and healthcare professionals the opportunity to explore this issue with the following questions:

What do we know about PrEP and Black African communities?
What are the myths and other barriers to PrEP awareness and acceptability?
What can we learn from past community PrEP programmes?
How will we achieve equitable PrEP access for individuals who may benefit from it?
What are some of the challenges and opportunities along the way?

Webinar feedback

The event was well attended by a number of stakeholders from across the sector, including health promoters and educators, local authority colleagues and commissioners, Public Health England staff and researchers.

Our feedback survey was responded to by 18 attendees, 63% of which work with Black African communities. All 18 respondents advised that the webinar was well oragnised, matched or exceeded expectations, and the delivery was of a high standard. They also unaminously advised the presentations were relavent and applicable to their work, and clear and easy to understand.

Thank you to respondents who provided further comments, these included the opportunity to find out what was happening at a community-level, the lessons learned from the projects, and information about how to engage different communities about PrEP.

Some attendees would have liked to see further forward thinking on this issue, building on the reflections presented during the session. Some would also like further information about promoting PrEP to other populations such as sex workers.

Watch the recording

Download the presentations

Community HIV testing and COVID-19

HIV Prevention England and NAT (National AIDS Trust) invited you to join us for this online event on Wednesday 26 August 2020 exploring how to deliver safe and effective community HIV testing in the current context of COVID-19, and launching NAT’s two new toolkits, created to support the effective design and evaluation of community HIV testing.

HIV Prevention England Conference 2020

HPE organises a conference to bring together professionals working in HIV prevention and sexual health in England, as well as other key figures and influencers in the field of HIV.

The 2020 conference took place on Tuesday 18 February in central London.

Download the programme [PDF]

Let’s get to zero HIV: we have all the tools we need

Understanding HIV and STIs in BAME populations

During July 2019, HPE hosted two training webinars for community and health professionals working in HIV prevention in England.

Key Populations: Understanding HIV and STI trends to help guide future prevention strategies

Thursday 28 March 2019

Earlier this year, the Government announced a new goal to eliminate HIV in England by 2030. In order to achieve this ambitious goal, providers in the HIV and sexual health sector need to ensure services and interventions are reaching the key populations at risk of HIV. The trends in key populations have shifted since the beginning of the epidemic.

This event sought to determine what those trends are, and what the implications for service delivery may be.

PrEP and HIV Testing Seminar for GPs and professionals working in primary care

Monday 22 & Monday 29 October 2018

This free event for GPs and other professionals working in primary care provided an expert-led introduction of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and information on HIV testing, ahead of National HIV Testing Week.

‘I can’t pass on HIV’: Treatment as prevention webinar

Monday 21 May 2018

We hosted a lunchtime webinar for HIV and other professionals on what it means to be undetectable and uninfectious.

The webinar was facilitated by Dr Michael Brady, HIV consultant and Terrence Higgins Trust Medical Director.

PreP information seminar

Wednesday 14 March 2018

Working together with the PaSH partnership, we hosted an information seminar on PrEP in Greater Manchester. The session covered the ongoing PrEP Impact Trial, how PrEP fits into the HIV combination prevention package, and the role of health professionals in ensuring adequate access by those in need.

Webinar on Trans health and HIV issues

Tuesday 7 November 2017

This webinar covered was delivered in partnership with CliniQ, ClinicT, The LGBT Foundation and Yorkshire Mesmac.

HPE 2017 Conference

Thursday 18 May 2017

HIV Prevention England (HPE) organises a biennial conference to bring together HPE partners, commissioners, health promoters, HIV service providers and faith leaders working in England, as well as other key figures and influencers in the field of HIV. The last conference took place on Thursday 18 May 2017 in central London.