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PrEP2U: delivering HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in partnership from a community setting
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  1. Daniel Richardson1,2,
  2. Marc Tweed3,
  3. Kayleigh Nichols1,
  4. Rory Finn3,
  5. Stephen Nicholson4,
  6. Mary Darking5
  1. 1 Sexual Health & HIV, University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, Brighton, UK
  2. 2 Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Brighton, UK
  3. 3 Terrence Higgins Trust- South, Brighton & Hove, UK
  4. 4 Public Health, Brighton & Hove City Council, Hove, UK
  5. 5 School of Humanities and Social Science Care, Health and Emotional Wellbeing Research and Enterprise Group, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK
  1. Correspondence to Professor Daniel Richardson, University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, Brighton, UK; docdanielr{at}hotmail.com

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/sextrans-2022-055610

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    People who experience marginalisation (eg, gender-diverse people, racially minoritised communities) continue to have poor access to HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).1 Innovative programmes increase the uptake of PrEP using peers and partnerships with communities, for example, the ‘Princess PrEP Programme’ in Thailand.2

    A partnership between the local clinical team and Terrence Higgins Trust (THT)-South, supported by the Public Health commissioner and the University of Brighton, co-designed a community HIV-PrEP service: PrEP2U. In April 2022, we started providing HIV-PrEP weekly (Thursday afternoon) at THT-South in the centre of Brighton. THT-South actively seek out key populations and are responsible for STI/HIV testing; the clinical team assess the need for HIV-PrEP, provide medication, vaccination (hepatitis A/B, human papillomavirus) and renal monitoring (figure 1). To date, 37 individuals have accessed PrEP2U and 30 (81%) started HIV-PrEP for the first time.

    Figure 1
    Figure 1

    Identification and management of individuals for PrEP2U. HPV, human papillomavirus; NAAT, nucleic acid amplification test; NHS, National Health Service; PrEP, pre-exposure prophylaxis.

    We have co-designed and delivered a community-based HIV-PrEP service through a successful partnership which we intend to replicate in other settings.

    Ethics statements

    Patient consent for publication

    Ethics approval

    Not applicable.

    References

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      2. Ogaz D ,
      3. Logan L ,
      4. Curtis TJ , et al
      . PrEP use and unmet PrEP-need among men who have sex with men in London prior to the implementation of a national PreP programme, a cross-sectional study from June to August 2019. BMC Public Health 2022;22:1105.doi:10.1186/s12889-022-13425-0 pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35659209
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    2. ↵
      2. Phanuphak N ,
      3. Sungsing T ,
      4. Jantarapakde J , et al
      . Princess PrEP program: the first key population-led model to deliver pre-exposure prophylaxis to key populations by key populations in Thailand. Sex Health 2018;15:542–55.doi:10.1071/SH18065 pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30249317
      OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed

    Footnotes

    • Handling editor Anna Maria Geretti

    • Contributors DR and MD led the production of this manuscript. DR, MT, KN, RF, SN and MD all contributed to the final manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.