The IMPRESS Project
Staff at the Faculty of Health and Wellbeing have been working on a €1million cross channel (Transmanche) Interreg research project to increase awareness of the benefits of early HIV testing in those exposed to the virus, and the total number of HIV tests performed in Kent and Medway.
The work — based on earlier exploratory research (O’Connor et al, 2014) — conducted by the team to identify reasons for the higher than national average number of people diagnosed late in the region (defined as a CD4 count <350 cells/mm³ within three months of diagnosis), resulted in 2,376 additional HIV tests (a 14.2% increase) being conducted in a five month period between 1 st October 2014 and the 28 th of February 2015 — in comparison to the same period in 2013 and 2014.
The number of early diagnoses (i.e. patients with a CD4 count >351 cells/mm³ within three months of diagnosis) also increased after a number of interventions implemented by the project team in partnership with Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust, Medway NHS Foundation Trust, and Kent County Council.
The interventions, drawn from recommendations in the original exploratory study, included an educational programme designed to raise awareness of the clinical indicators of HIV and the benefits of early testing for GPs and other healthcare staff, together with a concerted public health, social media and political advocacy campaign in the month leading up to World AIDS Day on 1st December 2014. These interventions had a significant impact on service uptake during the intervention period and in subsequent months; one project Facebook page operated by Kent County Council having a total reach of 18,335 viewers during the campaign period in November 2014. Designated webpages on Kent County Council’s website received 1,467 visits between 1st November 2014 and 19th March 2015, including 697 people accessing information about the location of their local STD clinic and 615 people accessing information about the whereabouts of a mobile sexual health clinic (The Blue Bus). The Blue Bus visited different parts of Kent and Medway during November 2014 as part of an awareness raising campaign which also included posters, leaflets, radio and television coverage of the research project’s findings and the campaign launched in its aftermath.
The project was hailed a success by a range of clinicians, including Public Health England’s Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance and Control’s representative, Dr Anthony Nardone, at the project’s international closing conference held at Canterbury Cathedral Lodge on 26th March 2015. Positive outcomes were also reported by project partners from Picardy in northern France, where the results of the intervention strategy recommend by the team were also implemented.
The final report, Evaluation of Strategies to Increase the Early Uptake of HIV testing: Results from the IMPRESS Health 2 (Interreg IVA Channel Programme) Project 4155 which was led by Dr Stephen J. O’Connor, Reader in Palliative and End of Life Care in the Faculty’s School on Nursing, is available to read here.