2015-16 review of Sexual Health Improvement for Population and Patients HIT

Professor John Macleod looks back over the work of the Sexual Health Improvement for Population and Patients Health Integration Team during 2015-16.

The Sexual Health Improvement for Population and Patients Health Integration Team (SHIPP HIT) works to promote evidence based sexual health improvement. We’ve piloted a new approach to management of cases of chlamydia and gonorrhoea diagnosed in the community. This alternative care pathway offers the option for telephone-based management by a centralised team of specialist nurses for any test taken in the practice. We have evaluated this model in 11 south Bristol practices, and both practice staff and patients reported positively. This pilot study informed the design of a larger, definitive cost-effectiveness evaluation, submitted to NIHR in April 2016.

In other research news, our work in patient and public involvement in sexual health services led by Jane Meyrick and Debra Gray was published in the Journal of Sexual Health. Our serious incident audit of very late HIV diagnosis undertaken by Justine Womack, Mark Gompels, Margaret May, Charlotte Davies and others was published in the Journal of Public Health.

In 2015 Bristol City Council updated the sexual health element of its Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, in part to inform their re-procurement of sexual health services in 2016. As part of this exercise, we analysed local population-based data on the need for sexual health services, collected through the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), also known as Children of the 90s. We are also collaborating with ALSPAC on measuring the prevalence of chlamydia and gonorrhoea in their young adult participants.

We submitted three proposals in CLAHRC West’s 2016 project call, including one on the extension of services to support recognition of and response to intimate partner violence in pharmacies offering emergency contraception. We also submitted an evaluation of services to prevent repeat teenage pregnancy in high risk young women, and use of a web-based costing tool to evaluate service innovation in specialist sexual health services using routine patient data.

The programme of research to improve how healthcare professionals respond to adult patients who experience or perpetrate domestic violence or abuse, and to their children, led by Gene Feder continues to go from strength to strength. The team secured five year funding with a second NIHR programme grant for the REPROVIDE project. Gene and colleagues are shortlisted in the ‘Innovation into Practice’ category of the 2016 BMJ Awards. Being shortlisted is a huge achievement and evidence of their impact.

www.bristolhealthpartners.org.uk/shipp