BHIVA TREATMENT GUIDELINES: Community consultation meeting 28 Fe
BHIVA TREATMENT GUIDELINES: Community consultation meeting 28 Feb
If you are coming please RSVP to me (Gus – not to BHIVA) so we can gauge likely attendance.
Dear fellow-patients, friends and colleagues:
You are invited to a Community Consultation Meeting to hear about, discuss and give feedback on the 2012 British HIV Association Treatment Guidelines (Guidelines for Antiretroviral Treatment of Adults with HIV Infection). The guidelines are currently up for public consultation – see http://www.bhiva.org/TreatmentGuidelinesConsultation.aspx.
The meeting is on Tuesday 28 February from 10.30-12.30 at Friends House, 173-177 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ, followed by a sandwich lunch. Friends House is opposite Euston Station: see http://www.friendshouse.co.uk/getting-here for a map.
The new BHIVA HIV Treatment Guidelines are the first to be published since 2008 and contain a number of significant changes to recommended HIV treatment. In addition, they are the first HIV treatment guidelines to be written in accordance with the 2009 requirements for NHS evidence accreditation (see https://www.evidence.nhs.uk/accreditation). UK patient representatives from the UK Community Advisory Board (UK-CAB) were included in the writing group and in a final-draft consultation meeting in December.
The guidelines incoporate a number of important changes and new sections:
·They are the first HIV treatment guidelines anywhere in the world to recommend that doctors talk about the prevention benefits of treatment to all patients and that if patients wish to start treatment in order not to infect others, it should be prescribed.
·They single out tenofovir/FTC (Truvada) as the preferred NRTI component in first-line regimens but broaden recommendations for the third drug to efavirenz, raltegravir or boosted atazanavir or darunavir.
·They retain a CD4 count of 350 cells/mm3 as the threshold for starting treatment but broaden the number of situations in which starting treatment earlier is recommended, including in early infection.
·They also include important new sections on supporting patients and adherence, and an important section on resource use.
HIV, as in so many other ways, is unusual in that the UK guidelines on what constitues the best treatment are still written by the doctors and patients who actually work and live with HIV every day, rather than by an evaluation agency such as NICE. UK HIV treatment, like much else in the NHS, is likely to go through an unprecedented degree of change in the next three years as the commissioning bodies for HIV change, responsibility for sexual health services and HIV testing shifts to local authorities, and cheap generic HIV drugs start to become available. In this setting it is especially important to have best-practice guidelines based upon firm evidence to guide NHS prescribing and funding decisions. Come and hear how they were and what the implications are for your or your service users’ treatment.
PDF version
BHIVA TREATMENT GUIDELINES: Community consultation meeting 28 Feb
If you are coming please RSVP to me (Gus – not to BHIVA) so we can gauge likely attendance.
Dear fellow-patients, friends and colleagues:
You are invited to a Community Consultation Meeting to hear about, discuss and give feedback on the 2012 British HIV Association Treatment Guidelines (Guidelines for Antiretroviral Treatment of Adults with HIV Infection). The guidelines are currently up for public consultation – see http://www.bhiva.org/TreatmentGuidelinesConsultation.aspx.
The meeting is on Tuesday 28 February from 10.30-12.30 at Friends House, 173-177 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ, followed by a sandwich lunch. Friends House is opposite Euston Station: see http://www.friendshouse.co.uk/getting-here for a map.
The new BHIVA HIV Treatment Guidelines are the first to be published since 2008 and contain a number of significant changes to recommended HIV treatment. In addition, they are the first HIV treatment guidelines to be written in accordance with the 2009 requirements for NHS evidence accreditation (see https://www.evidence.nhs.uk/accreditation). UK patient representatives from the UK Community Advisory Board (UK-CAB
) were included in the writing group and in a final-draft consultation meeting in December.
The guidelines incoporate a number of important changes and new sections:
· They are the first HIV treatment guidelines anywhere in the world to recommend that doctors talk about the prevention benefits of treatment to all patients and that if patients wish to start treatment in order not to infect others, it should be prescribed.
· They single out tenofovir/FTC (Truvada) as the preferred NRTI component in first-line regimens but broaden recommendations for the third drug to efavirenz, raltegravir or boosted atazanavir or darunavir.
· They retain a CD4 count of 350 cells/mm3 as the threshold for starting treatment but broaden the number of situations in which starting treatment earlier is recommended, including in early infection.
· They also include important new sections on supporting patients and adherence, and an important section on resource use.
HIV, as in so many other ways, is unusual in that the UK guidelines on what constitues the best treatment are still written by the doctors and patients who actually work and live with HIV every day, rather than by an evaluation agency such as NICE. UK HIV treatment, like much else in the NHS, is likely to go through an unprecedented degree of change in the next three years as the commissioning bodies for HIV change, responsibility for sexual health services and HIV testing shifts to local authorities, and cheap generic HIV drugs start to become available. In this setting it is especially important to have best-practice guidelines based upon firm evidence to guide NHS prescribing and funding decisions. Come and hear how they were and what the implications are for your or your service users’ treatment.
Best wishes,
Gus.
Gus Cairns
Editor, HIV Treatment Update
Editor, Preventing HIV
NAM
gus@nam.org.uk
77a Tradescant Road, London, SW8 1XJ
+44 (0) 20-3242 0831 (direct line)
+44 (0) 20-3242 0820 (switchboard)
+ 44 (0)7 968 960 407 (mobile)
www.aidsmap.com