Chamber and committees

It would be right for the evaluation of the opt-out pilots to start once the pilots are finished and I do not imagine that it will take too long.

We need to recognise how game changing PrEP has been in Scotland. There are currently about 8,000 people living with PrEP as part of their daily life. That is a positive story.

You are right. In Scotland, we have reached the point at which we have to find the people who are in the less obvious communities. As I highlighted earlier, that is why the work that the third sector organisations are doing, alongside academics and clinicians, to ensure that we can find those communities in the best way is important. Nicky Coia referred to the Glasgow injecting community and noted that the safer injecting rooms might help.

We have created a PrEP short-life working group, which will consider how we manage and maximise PrEP eligibility criteria and, perhaps, consider the expansion of PrEP prescribing. I go back to the answers to the first set of questions about stigma. We need to find the best way to ensure that people who have HIV or might have HIV have the best way of accessing the services that we provide. I hope that the delivery plan will help with that.

You are right. I always balance up the demand to take action at speed with the need to ensure that the information is as robust as possible. Public Health Scotland has just appointed an HIV co-ordinator who will monitor and manage the situation, which is a positive way forward.

I agree. Some of the stories that I have also heard are harrowing; they are not the kind of stories that we want to hear about Scotland. In his evidence, Nicky Coia reflected on one story from a nurse in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area. It is important that we ensure that everybody who works in health and social care gets the right support to understand how things have changed in the way in which HIV is treated. It is fair to say that there is a lack of up-to-date knowledge; the committee heard evidence to support that.

That is why the work of Dr Daniela Brawley and NHS Grampian on e-learning is so important. If it is successful, I hope that it will be rolled out in the same way as other education that is provided on the Turas learning system. In his evidence, Nicky Coia talked clearly about what Glasgow had done 10 years ago and recognised that there might be a need to build on that.

Education is one of the important aspects of our plan. It is especially important to remember that stigma is a dreadful thing. I attended a round-table meeting hosted by Paul O’Kane—it was one of the first that I attended in my role—because it was important for me to hear from people who are living with HIV about the impact that it has on their lives. It is about those awareness campaigns, and about how we, as elected members of the Parliament, can support that awareness.

I pay tribute to the Terence Higgins Trust for the fantastic collaborative work that it did to produce the campaign advert video that was shared on media from October last year. We are currently analysing that campaign to get its outcomes. It is really important to raise awareness and try to reduce stigma.

I pass that on to Rebekah Carton.

We will get the information from that work when we evaluate the outcomes of those opt-out pilots.

I whole-heartedly endorse what Maggie Chapman said about television, film and adverts. When I think about where my knowledge came from, it was from the films “Philadelphia” and “Dallas Buyers Club”. You spoke about dramas, and “EastEnders” had that kind of storyline. That is important. In the online age, short pieces can also be helpful, which is why the Terrence Higgins Trust film really cut through. It was short and hard hitting, but the message was absolutely clear. As I said earlier, we are doing some work to gather information on that to see how it has worked, and we will keep that in mind if we have further plans for whatever awareness raising that we feel needs to be done.

As I said earlier, I represent one of Scotland’s rural constituencies. I have had conversations that are similar to some of the evidence that you heard.

I always think that there is an interesting balance to take in rural communities. Because of the stigma, some people are happier travelling to a larger population centre for their treatment. We have to bear that in mind when we are looking at the situation.

In the committee’s previous evidence session, Dr Howe gave strong anecdotal evidence about how she operates and how things operate in Highland. It is important to recognise that, alongside the delivery plan, we have done some work to look at rural inequalities and how we can ensure that the service that people in those areas get is the same as we would expect in the larger centres and is person centred. I think that that work will be published later this week.

The committee also heard from Professor Estcourt about the amazing work that is being doing with regard to ePrEP. Again, that could work well to support people in rural communities.

Have I covered everything, Rebekah Carton?

I appreciate that we published the plan just this morning. If the committee has any further questions about it and wants to write to us, we would be very happy to have a dialogue in that way.

On resources, we have set aside £1.7 million for the whole HIV plan within this element of Government. The committee heard very clear evidence that resources are tight for this. I am reflecting on that. That is why it is so important that we get the spending on this right. There will be more information coming out on how we decide to spend the money, but we appreciate that we have a tight budget.

I put on record the amazing collaboration that happens among the third sector, academics, health boards and the Government. That came across really strongly in your two evidence sessions in the previous meeting. I like to say that they are our critical friends, and I think that we work very well together. I really appreciate their hard work. They know their community so well. Dr Clutterbuck reflected on that in his evidence.

We must remember that the pilots are happening in busy A and E departments. We do not want to introduce, for long periods of time, additional stresses in areas that are already very stressed. We felt that we could get the answers from the time periods that we set.

It is important that we recognise that pilots are also happening in England. The data that comes out of those, as well as the data that comes out of Scotland, will be considered so that we can see the bigger picture.