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HIV care across the South West

The South West Clinical Senate Council will meet on Thursday 23rd January 2014 in Taunton to discuss the subject of HIV care across the South West. The South West Specialised Commissioners, are responsible for ensuring that patients across the South West have equitable access to high quality care and that specialist advice is available to them and the teams responsible for them.

NHS England, which is responsible for commissioning highly specialised services for a number of clinical conditions including HIV, have produced specifications which describe in detail the quality of the services which are likely to deliver the best outcomes for patients. These specifications have been worked up by an expert reference group of patients and clinicians who are recognised leaders in their field. To find out more about Specialised Services click here

It is the responsibility of the South West Commissioning team to develop the most appropriate arrangements for delivering care.

In order to help the Specialised Services Commissioners make the most effective decisions, the South West Clinical Senate has produced a set of guiding Principles for Specialised Commissioning. These were agreed at a meeting of the Senate Council on 12th December 2013 and will be applied to any forthcoming deliberations by the Clinical Senate which relate to Specialised Services.

The first such deliberation for the Clinical Senate is on HIV. The question for the Clinical Senate on this occasion is:

“Given the demography of the South West, what would the Clinical Senate consider to be the optimal model/s to deliver HIV care to children and adults with specific reference to:

  • 24/7 access to specialist opinion
  • the issue of late diagnosis
  • people over the age of 50″

Evidence will be presented to the Senate Council by patients, commissioners, clinicians, public health experts and third sector organisations from across the South West.

The advice derived from this meeting will be published on this website in due course.