Chamber and committees

I am pleased that over the past year we have had—I think—four intergovernmental meetings on the matter. In addition, in the past few months, my officials have been meeting weekly, and sometimes twice weekly. We have a number of avenues through which to raise any points that we wish to raise with the UK Government. I also intend to join the stakeholders in meeting Mr Glen next week.

I thank Paul Sweeney for that offer. As the committee knows, we will have a debate on the LCM on the bill this afternoon and it is my intention, after having listened to contributions, to write to the UK Government outlining what is said in the chamber. I see no reason why the committee’s views should not also be shared, whether separately by you or as part of my letter. It would probably be better if you did it separately. I have no concerns about that.

As I said in response to Ruth Maguire’s question, the important thing is that we think about those who were infected and have been affected, and that we put those people at the centre of our decision making. I am sure that you will do that.

There has to be a focused approach. We have been funding Waverley Care, which is signed up to fast-track cities and works closely with people who are living with HIV to ensure that their voices are heard. In an awful lot of cases, it is the peer-to-peer conversations that help to spread awareness. Waverley Care has been helpful in creating videos on how to access post-exposure prophylaxis, for example. That is an important way of targeting the right support.

I represent Argyll and Bute, and Oban has a fantastic pride march. Rothesay, on Bute, is also having one this year. Those are really important awareness-raising events. The Terence Higgins Trust, Waverley Care and various other people come to Oban. It is a really warm and happy event, and a lot of information is exchanged, which is a really good way of doing it. It is locally based and, again, the message is being spread.

Absolutely.

When we talked about the possibility of an opt-out pilot, we thought it important to choose a variety of health boards to participate. They include Lothian, which covers an urban area; Grampian, which includes a mixture of areas; and Highland, which covers a more rural area. We have therefore covered a cross-section of Scotland. It is important to say that the group that had been involved in considering whether opt-out testing was the right way forward had asked for such an approach.

We are often caught between a rock and a hard place on such matters. Should we take action quickly? Should we ask health boards to apply for a pilot quickly, so that we get a response from it and receive data? Alternatively, should we wait longer, which can often result in our being asked why we are not doing it? On balance, I think that we made the right decision to fund pilots in those three areas, because they cover different elements of the Scottish mainland and the islands.

I would never say never. Depending on the prevalence of the virus in Scotland, and how elimination is progressing, those could be appropriate. If there are changes in the population in Scotland through migration, we need to make sure that we are nimble. That is one of the things that the delivery plan allows us to be. It allows us to ensure that we focus on the right areas to hit the HIV elimination target in 2030.

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.