Primary
Care and Mental Health involvement with the forum, which Dr Thurston
agreed to follow up with a letter to all Chief Executives of the Primary
Care Groups and Trusts inviting them to nominate a representative;
Feedback
on appropriate liver tests for people taking Nevirapine – Dr Thurston
agreed to follow up this up
Benefits
and availability of micro-nutrients – this had not been pursued as the
person who had agreed to the look in to the matter was on maternity
leave.
The
manner in which some people have their CD4 counts presented – as decimals
rather than significant figures. Dr Gray agreed to raise the issue with
the Consultant Haematologist and feedback at the next meeting
The
new gay GP service was announced commencing on Wednesday 18th April
20001 at the Piccadilly Centre, Hanley. The director of Staffordshire
Buddies, Janine Hunt welcomed the service and the opportunity to meet
Dr Simon Smith who will be taking the fortnightly clinic. She informed
the group of the problems around reproductive support for positive women.
A
report on some of the findings of research into the health of gay men
in North Staffordshire is due in September.
Details
relating to HIV infection in women giving birth in the UK were circulated
to the group
The
Health Authority has accepted the updated AIDS Control Act and a full
copy of the document is available from Dr Hilary Thurston
The
remainder of the meeting was taken up with the service user report:
Service
users hailed the HIV 2000 Conference in November 2000 as a great success.
The only criticism was that there wasn’t enough time to address the
issues raised by the key speakers and afternoon workshops.
Some
of these issues were carried forward to a useful follow-up workshop
that took place on 13th December and the recommendations from that
workshop were presented in the Service User Report
Dr
Thurston agreed to write to Fiona Jones regarding the recent review
of HIV services in which a number of positive people participated
and agreed to feedback at the next meeting.
Dr
Thurston expressed her keenness to have service user input into the
forum and thanked Maurice Greenham for his valuable contribution to
the group. There was discussion centred on the possibility of holding
a twice-yearly sub-group for positive people.
The
value of the Clinical Nurse Specialist question and answer session
at Staffordshire Buddies was mentioned, as was appreciation of the
visit by Jane Chapman
An
issue raised by the December workshop regarding information for positive
people about benefits was discussed. Mr McGrogan suggested that Social
Services be contacted regarding this. Julie Metcalfe agreed to follow
this up.
The
HIV allocation for 2001 was still unknown
