David Johnson, who is leaving Waverley Care after 17 years at the helm, said huge progress had been made in the treatment of HIV in the last two decades, with many patients still alive today despite what was thought to be a death sentence when diagnosed.

But he said one of his biggest disappointments was the "disengagement" of many local authorities who were no longer providing HIV-specific services such as welfare advice and social work, at a time when demand for these was likely to grow with an ageing HIV population.

Johnson said the charity's respite care service, Milestone House, was also under threat again as Edinburgh City Council reviewed its support of the home.

"One of my disappointments is that we have made these great advances medically, and on the back of that you would have expected people to be looking at the social implications of an HIV diagnosis and for councils to be thinking of the implications for their services," Johnson said.

"And yet what we have increasingly seen is a disengagement from many councils on the HIV front, at a time when actually the call on their services is likely to grow."

Councils were increasingly trying to merge HIV-related care into other mainstream services to save money, he insisted. "A number of councils no longer fund HIV-specific services, so you no longer have welfare rights advisers specifically for people with HIV.

"Edinburgh has done an amazingly good job over the years when you think that it was once deemed the Aids capital of Europe - but even here yet again the future of Milestone House, our respite unit, is being reviewed, with queries over whether the council is able to continue with it."

The review of Milestone House, which is mostly funded by Edinburgh City Council and costs £500,000 a year to run, is looking at the needs of those who use it and whether they could be cared for at home or in the community. But if the council funding were to be pulled, the service would be closed, Johnson said.

"There is an irony, as the social care needs grow because people are living longer with HIV, that the funding at the council level across Scotland has steadily reduced.

"They will say we are taking care of people through mainstream services, but I think the experience of a lot of people is that the mainstream services don't work for them."

One example of a service that had been cut was the dedicated social work team for people with HIV in Fife, known as Fife Positive Support. "Fife Positive Support has now been absorbed by mainstream social work teams," Johnson said. "So there has been a move away from having dedicated services for folk with HIV.

"All the evidence shows that HIV is here to stay.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/HIV-support-39at-risk39-from.6776115.jp