Get ready for National HIV Testing Week 2023

National HIV Testing Week starts Monday 6 February 2023 so please prepare by familiarising yourself with this year’s campaign and the different ways you can get involved.

A new campaign for 2023

National HIV Testing Week is a campaign to promote regular testing among the most-affected population groups in England. Regular testing helps to reduce the number of people living with undiagnosed HIV and those diagnosed late.

This year, the campaign returns with a new strapline, ‘I Test.’, across all National HIV Testing Week
materials, replacing ‘Give HIV The Finger’, which has been in place for the previous five years. The headline ‘I Test.’ is followed by a line that explores people’s different reasons for testing. This allows for flexibility in responding to different audience needs.

The new strapline and campaign approach was developed and adopted following findings and recommendations from evaluations of ‘Give HIV The Finger’ and audience insights gathered over the summer of 2022. Audiences were involved through focus groups and surveys throughout the development process. It builds on the concept of the National HIV Prevention Programme’s umbrella campaign, ‘It Starts With Me‘ by positioning testing as something normal, desirable, and that we can all take personal responsibility for.

Please see sample images from the campaign below. The campaign features a wide range of models with some resources translated into a number of languages. You can see the whole range of campaign resources via HIV Prevention England’s resources portal.

How to get involved

There are many ways you can get involved and support National HIV Testing Week. We are inviting organisations to participate by running campaign events, providing testing opportunities and promoting HIV testing, and prevention awareness, with our support. For more details, please download the campaign briefing [PDF].

Free Resources

Free resources to promote HIV testing this National HIV Testing Week are now available to order.

Log in to order leaflets, posters, and merchandise to support your National HIV Testing Week activities.

All printed resources are also available to download as PDFs.

Order your resources now.

Social Media Pack

The social media pack is now available to download.

Over 20,0000 Postal HIV test kits ordered around National HIV Testing Week 2016

The promotion of the national HIV home sampling service between 7 November 2016 and 8 January 2017 resulted in over 20,000 kits ordered, a substantially larger number compared to the same period in the previous year.

The national HIV home-sampling service

Since 2015, Public Health England (PHE) and Local Authorities have provided a national HIV home-sampling service for the most at-risk populations for HIV acquisition. For most parts of the year, the free test kits are available only in areas of England where local authorities choose to fund the service. However, during periods of national promotion, PHE fund the service across the whole of England.

The most notable period of national promotion is around National HIV Testing Week (NHTW), which occurs in November each year. HIV Prevention England (HPE) promote the home-sampling kits in the lead-up to, during, and after NHTW, encouraging people to order a kit online, take their own sample and return it by post to a laboratory for testing and results management. The test is highly accurate four weeks after infection, and almost 100 per cent accurate after eight weeks.

These kits differ from HIV self-testing kits, which do not need to be analysed in a lab: individuals get an immediate result that they can read themselves. The self-test is most accurate 12 weeks or more after infection.

Home-sampling kits ordered

The promotion in the period around NHTW 2016 resulted in 20,175 home-sampling kits ordered between November 7 2016 and 8 January 2017. This is 4,405 kits more compared to the same period in 2015-2016.

Table 1: home-sampling tests ordered during the full promotion period

Description Nov 2015 to Jan 2016 Nov 2016 to January 2017 Change
Number of kits ordered 15,770 20,175 up 4,405
Number of kits returned 7,985 10,421 up 2,436
Return rate 50.6% 51.7% up 1.1%

Table 2: home-sampling tests ordered during NHTW

Description 21 Nov to 29 Nov 2015 19 Nov to 27 Nov 2016 Change
Number of kits ordered 5,777 5,740 down 37
Number of kits returned 2,895 3,081 up 186
Return rate 50.1% 53.7% up 3.6%

Results management

Test results are managed by a community-based organisation partner who provides further support and guidance on next steps. Tests give ‘reactive’ or ‘non-reactive’ results. Reactive results are further classified into ‘high’ and ‘low’ reactives, based on a particular cut-off index. While high reactives are more likely to have an HIV infection confirmed, all reactive results are immediately referred to appropriate services for further testing and clinical confirmation.

The previous year, 1.1 per cent of analysed tests were reactive and of these, 0.7 per cent were high reactives. This information can be looked at alongside HIV positive test results in other testing settings, including specialist sexual health clinics and general practice settings:

Table 3: results comparison by setting (PHE, 2016)

Specialist sexual health clinics
Positivity rate for service users (2015 data)
0.3% (2,850/998,503)
Specialist sexual health clinics
Positivity rate for service users (2015 data)
0.3% (2,850/998,503)
National home-sampling service
High reactive rate for service users (Nov 2015 – Sept 2016 data)*
0.7% (128/18,270)

* high reactive test results likely to be confirmed as positive

Currently, 85 local authorities have committed to implementing the national scheme. Considering the increasing demand for the service, the relatively high reactivity rate and the reasonable cost of the service, there is scope for broader action on making postal tests available and promoting them to communities and individuals who may be at a higher risk for HIV acquisition.

More information

NICE/PHE guideline on increasing HIV testing uptake

The full report for 2015-2016 on the national home-sampling scheme will be available from Public Health England in March 2017.

Social media resources for National HIV Testing Week

We are only a few days away from National HIV Testing Week which kicks off this Saturday, 19 November. We’ve put together some sample posts, tweets and images to help you with your social media to promote the week.

The sample posts and tweets link through to different tools on our It Starts With Me website.

When to test tool

Suggested post for Facebooktrim-1

It’s National HIV Testing Week. Find out if you need to test https://goo.gl/NGk5ej

Thousands of people are getting tested for National HIV Testing Week. Find out if you need to test https://goo.gl/NGk5ej

Suggested tweets

Thousands of people are getting tested for HIV during #HIVTestWeek. Find out if you need to test https://goo.gl/HtgJvv

In the UK, thousands of people are living with HIV and don’t even know it. Find out if you need to test https://goo.gl/HtgJvv

Where to test tool

Suggested post for Facebook

Thousands of people are getting tested for National HIV Testing Week. Find out where to test https://goo.gl/YIijI0

Suggested tweet

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Make a difference today and join thousands of people getting tested for National HIV Testing Week. Find where to test https://goo.gl/BSTK1V #HIVTestWeek

Which test tool

Suggested post for Facebook

Still trying to make a decision on how to get tested for HIV? Here is a quick tool to help decide on the type of HIV test that might suit you. https://goo.gl/EyM6Yv

Suggested tweet

Confused about how to get tested for HIV? Find out which test might be right for you https://goo.gl/HxsE4r #HIVTestWeek

Order a postal test

Suggested posts for Facebook

It’s National HIV Testing Week. Join thousands of people getting tested by ordering a free HIV postal test today. https://goo.gl/sTqQcp

Thousands of people are getting tested for HIV this week for National HIV Testing Week. Order a free HIV postal test today. https://goo.gl/sTqQcp

Suggested tweets

Make a difference today and join thousands of people getting tested for National HIV Testing Week #ImTesting. Find where to test https://goo.gl/707QgO

Are you getting tested for #HIVTestWeek? Order an HIV postal test today
https://goo.gl/yTYqYi

Images

Here are some images you can download and use with your posts.

Square images:

Image one | Image two | Image three

Image four | Image five | Image six

Image seven | Image eight | Image nine

Image ten | Image eleven

Landscape images:

Image one | Image twoImage three

Image fourImage fiveImage six

Image sevenImage eightImage nine

Image tenImage eleven

Social media flashcard

Download and print off our doubled-sided social media flashcard to personalise photos and posts during National HIV Testing Week. You can also share it with anyone else who’d like to use it over the week.