Update Friday 12 March: People living with HIV in Scotland and Northern Ireland can now access the COVID-19 vaccine through their HIV clinic. This is great news and means everyone living with HIV across the UK should be able to access this potentially life-saving vaccine without fear of encountering stigma or discrimination.

People living with HIV in Scotland and Northern Ireland can now access the COVID-19 vaccine through their HIV clinic. This is great news and means everyone living with HIV across the UK should be able to access this potentially life-saving vaccine without fear of encountering stigma or discrimination.

People living with HIV are due to get the COVID-19 vaccine in phase six of the rollout – after people over 65 and along with those with a number of other conditions, before the rest of the population.

However, there's a problem with the original rules. Because GPs are compiling the list for each phase, people living with HIV were only due to get the vaccine if they had disclosed their status to GP. Not everyone has – for all kinds of reasons, including the stigma that still exists about the virus. People living with HIV told the HIV Commission the people they were most likely to experience HIV related stigma from were healthcare professionals.

This was causing a real level of concern in the community.

The policy and public affairs team, alongside our counterparts at National AIDS Trust and PrEPster, raised it with the Department of Health and Social Care in early January.

In the following days, we approached Stephen Doughty MP, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on HIV/AIDS. He then submitted a parliamentary question on the issue. The issue was raised with the Welsh Government at the same time.

Then, in a regular meeting with the Shadow Health Secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, we raised the issue. He used his next question to Health Secretary, Matt Hancock to press the government to solve the issue and look into HIV clinics being able to provide the vaccine.

He then wrote to the Secretary of State and about the issue for the ‘i’ newspaper.

Having heard our campaign and Ashworth’s calls, Times Radio presenter Gloria De Piero put the issue to Vaccine Minister, Nadhim Zahawi on Sunday 7 February.

The Minister promised to ‘look at a workaround with the NHS [who] will try everything in its power’.

During the week of 8 February, our policy team had a meeting with NHS England about how an alternative could be arranged. Our Medical Director, Michael Brady, was hard at work behind the scenes.

Over a week later and with no action, Ashworth put it to the minister Zahawi directly on Iain Dale’s LBC show on Monday 15 February.

On Thursday 18 February, Vaughan Gething, the Welsh Health Minister, announced that NHS Wales was changing the rules and had a new system to avoid unnecessary disclosure.

On Sunday 21 February, we got the breakthrough in England that we had been waiting for. NHS England announced it will be following suit and giving people living with HIV the option to access this potentially life-saving vaccine through their HIV clinic.

Update Friday 12 March: Then on Thurday 11 March, we got a breakthrough in Scotland. The Scottish Government issued guidance for specialist clinics - including HIV clinics - to identify patients for the phase 6 group of the COVID-19 vaccine in cases where this cannot be done by their GP. Specific arrangements will vary across HIV clinics but this ultimately means all people living with HIV in Scoltand will be able to access the vaccine even if they have not disclosed their status to their GP.

Thank you to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Jeane Freeman MSP, and Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer, Gregor Smith for taking action on this. Special mention to our friends at MardiGla, Public Health Scotland’s Dr Rak Nandwani, and everyone else who helped ensure the voices of people living with HIV in Scotland were heard on this.  

This is great news and the right decision from the governments of England and Wales as it means people living with HIV will be able to take up the potentially life-saving COVID-19 vaccine at their earliest opportunity – even if they feel unable to share their HIV status with this doctor.

We're working towards a society where everyone living with HIV feels comfortable sharing their status with their doctor and other health professionals, but we’re not there yet and we welcome this fast, pragmatic action.

Some may be surprised to hear that a significant number of people living with HIV feel unable to talk to their GP about their HIV status, but this underlines how much stigma still surrounds the virus, even in 2021. We also know from talking to people living with HIV that healthcare is one of the areas in which HIV-related stigma and discrimination is still most rife with so-called ‘double gloving’ and other completely unnecessary additional precautions still being made at the GP, in hospitals and at dental surgeries. We're working on these issues with the NHS at the moment.

If you have any concerns or questions, THT Direct is available seven days a week with information about HIV and wider sexual health.

We want to thank those living with HIV that raised the issues and the parliamentarians who helped to push this, Stephen Doughty MP and Jon Ashworth MP in particular; the journalists to amplified the issue – Gloria De Piero, Iain Dale, Ben Butterworth and the team at Pink News deserve special mention; and the Ministers – Vaughan Gething MS and Nadhim Zahawi MP – and officials in the respective health departments, NHS Wales and NHS England for listening and making the changes necessary.

Campaigns like this can only happen with the kind support of our donors. If you want to see more campaigns to change policy affecting those living with HIV and to end new cases of HIV by 2030, please make a donation today.

Ian Green is Chief Executive of Terrence Higgins Trust.