Blanche Heriot HIV patients – it’s your choice

CNWL have just issued an updated “Briefing on new Sexual health and HIV services in Surrey”. http://www.cnwl.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/Briefing-about-CNWL-Sexual-Health-Services-in-Surrey_Revised-22Sep17.pdf This conveniently ignores the fact that the ‘new services’ have greatly reduced access to these essential services with over 30 clinics closed, Frimley GUM Clinic closed and the Blanche Heriot Unit about to close. This will leave Surrey with just three centres – in Redhill, Woking and Guildford - and ‘spoke’ clinics twice a week in Epsom and Leatherhead. Spoke clinics are also promised for Staines and somewhere in Runnymede. The Briefing makes the astonishing claim that “the services available from the Hub Clinics are the same as the services that were delivered by the previous providers”. That is absolutely not the case as far as Buryfields and Woking are concerned if the comparison is being made to the Blanche Heriot Unit. We have highlighted the inadequacies of Buryfields as an alternative to BHU before (see update ‘It’s Too Far and It Won’t Fit’). We are particularly concerned about patients of the Blanche Heriot Unit who are living with HIV and are absolutely reliant on a service which is local to them, which they trust and which can respond quickly to their treatment and care needs. Many of these patients cannot possibly be expected to travel to Buryfields Clinic on the outskirts of Guildford because of their co-morbidities, physical frailty, psychological fragility or mobility impairment. Others will find the time and cost of the journey to Guildford prohibitive. The CNWL Briefing refers to “HIV Treatment and Care Transition Clinics to be held at St Peter’s Hospital for six to nine months so patients living with HIV who previously attended the Blanche Heriot Unit have an opportunity to have their first appointment with the new CNWL service on the St Peter’s site. The service will work closely with patients to agree a care plan for the safe transfer of their care either to the CNWL HIV service or to another HIV service of their choice.” Our message to Blanche Heriot patients attending the transition clinic is that, if you cannot attend Buryfields Clinic for the reasons we have outlined above, you should say so and state that your choice is to continue to be treated at St Peter’s. There is no reason why this cannot happen. Dr Pritchard is remaining at St Peter’s to continue to treat genital pain and genital dermatology patients who, as a group, are now deemed to fall outside the remit of the CNWL contract. NHS England, who fund HIV services, are perfectly able to work with Ashford & St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to fund Dr Pritchard for one session per week to continue to care also for existing BHU HIV patients. There would be no governance issues, as has been suggested, with such an arrangement. Patients’ wishes have been disregarded throughout this flawed procurement process but it Is not too late, even at this last stage, for the commissioners to recognise the needs of a group of patients for whom there is no effective choice other than to remain at St Peter’s. To do otherwise, given their vulnerability, would surely amount to discrimination.