After winning a national award earlier this year, G-mhap are about to celebrate their second birthday. Positive Lives spoke to the head of G-mhap, Niall McGrogan, and put some questions to him ....

What is G-mhap?

G-mhap is a three-year project designed to improve the health of gay men in North Staffordshire. Its primary focus is to prevent further HIV infection, improve the health of gay men — positive, negative or untested — and to improve the health of the Lesbian Gay and Bisexual communities in North Staffordshire.

What is your job title/role within G-mhap?

My job title is Programme Leader — HIV and Sexual Health. My responsibilities include managing G-mhap, the Women’s Sexual Health project, The Piccadilly Project (our community base in Hanley), chairing the HIV Training Forum and overseeing new work e.g. HIV and travel.

Who are the other workers, and what are their job titles/roles?

G-mhap has two full time Project workers — Mark Fudge and Paul Gale. We also have five part time sessional workers: Keith Groom, Debra Rogers, Toni Montinaro, Steve Manley and Steve Griffiths.

How is it funded?

G-mhap is mostly funded from ring fenced HIV monies, but also from Health Action Lane monies and the Smoking Cessation Programme.

How is G-mhap accountable to the public taxpayers?

G-mhap is accountable to the public taxpayer through a variety of mechanisms including the production of reports to the Health Authority, feedback to the HIV Commissioning Group, the completion of AIDS Control Acts and the Annual Reports of the Directorate of Health Promotion. More directly, G-mhap is accountable to the gay community in North Staffordshire through open public meetings where annual action plans are discussed, debated and hopefully agreed. Your readers are very welcome to attend our second birthday on October 6^th at 7.30 p.m. in the Piccadilly Project. Our Annual report is widely distributed and we encourage people who do not wish to or are unable to attend consultation meetings, to get hold of a copy of this report (phone Stoke 400519) and provide opinions or feedback by writing or phone.

How do you prioritise spending?

Priorities for the forthcoming year are debated three months in advance with community groups, service users, the HIV Commissioning Group and Senior Management within the Directorate of Health Promotion. Proposed action is based on local, national and international evidence, epidemiological profiles, research etc.

How do you evaluate your results?

Different projects are evaluated in a number of ways. These could include uptake of services, attendance at groups, service users’ perceptions or self-reported behaviour. More specific to HIV, we conducted large-scale research into reported sexual behaviour and relevant other information (access to services, attendance at GUM etc) five years ago. This is being re-examined this autumn and will be repeated (all things permitting) in 2002. This gives some indication of behavioural change on a population basis.

How many people access G-mhap facilities?

In the last year, 2,569 visits were made to the Piccadilly Project

How do you discriminate between what people say that they want and what needs to be done?

As I mentioned earlier, we do discuss our plans publicly and consult on the following years activities and interventions. However, we have a job to do and no matter how popular a suggestion might be, if it isn’t going to bring health gain closer then its not a priority for our work. We have to take account of evidence, best practice, effectiveness, practicality etc. Also, we might come up with an idea, which is all of these things, is regarded by everybody as being a great idea, but if nobody wants to actually get involved, it might not be feasible.

What outreach work is undertaken?

At the moment we are doing outreach on Thursday evenings. What had been the biggest site has effectively stopped being a cruising ground and so activity in North Staffordshire is concentrated in one area. We also work with the Police and the LGB Police Liaison Committee to avert trouble spots from occurring in cottages.

What work is done with behaviourally bisexual men and their partners?

G-mhap has just launched a support group for married or bisexual men. At the moment it does not seem appropriate to work with their partners as most of these men are not “out” about their sexuality to their wives or girlfriends. However we will see how the group develops and take our lead from service users.

What work have you done specifically with HIV+ men?

We have not done specific or exclusive work with HIV positive gay men. However when we designed G-mhap we were explicit in making it accessible to positive, negative or untested gay men. Some positive gay men do use our services and find them valuable. I’m delighted to have this opportunity to repeat our welcome to positive gay men. We are considering the merits of’ certain “positive only” interventions. For example, we might look at a smoking cessation group for HIV positive people. There are pros and cons to this however: is the focus on status, or smoking, would there be enough participation to make it viable, would more positive gay men feel comfortable in a closed group? Or as we’ve heard several times from our positive service users, that they feel more comfortable in a “mixed” but secure environment. If any of Positive Lives gay men readers have any thoughts, please let me know.

What role has G-mhap/the Health Authority taken in this year’s World AIDS day events, and why have they not appointed a co-ordinator this year?

As you know, the HIV and Sexual Health programme has had three years of cuts to our funding. This unfortunately resulted in the loss of three staff. We have had to prioritise our activities with what we are capable of doing or funding. In relation to World AIDS Day, we are maintaining our core commitment to World AIDS Day in North Staffordshire by doing those necessary things which others may not be able to do. For example, we are developing or purchasing 15,000 Red Ribbons, 2,500 National leaflets, local leaflets, 500 NAT posters, and a North Staffordshire poster (for sale nationally in attempt to cover some of our costs). We are focusing our efforts on supporting those existing events, which match our HIV prevention priorities, and our efforts reaching the general public will be focused on the new Primary Care Groups.

(If Niall’s answers to our questions have raised issues in your mind, why not drop us a line with your questions or comments on his replies (our postal address is on the back page) and we will put them to him so he can answer them in our next issue - Ed)