Evaluation of Emergency Department blood borne virus testing

Evaluation of Emergency Department blood borne virus

testing

The evaluation of the Emergency Department (ED) Blood borne virus (BBV) opt out testing project. As part of the Government’s HIV Action Plan published in Dec 2021 the Government committed to provide £20m of funding to NHS England across three years to support the introduction of opt-out testing for HIV in 34 EDs in locations with the highest prevalence of HIV diagnosed.

This will support efforts to achieve the Government target of zero HIV transmissions in England by 2030. We have partnered with the NHSE Eliminating Hepatitis C programme team to include Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C testing in a BBV testing approach.

UKHSA and academic partners will undertake monitoring and evaluation to optimise the opt-out testing programme in terms of individual and public health benefits as well as value for money, a three-pronged evaluation approach is proposed: combining public health monitoring and evaluation, economic evaluation (collecting mainly quantitative data) as well as implementation optimisation / behavioural science research (collecting mainly qualitative data) to guide optimisation and standardisation and any future roll-out of ED testing in lower prevalence sites. Available demographic data on age, sex, ethnicity and deprivation (based on IMD of home address) will be used to investigate differences in testing and diagnosis to explore inequalities related to testing and accessing of treatment. This analysis will support sites in targeting interventions (e.g. assertive outreach and increased use of peer support) at populations who are less likely to engage and maintain contact with treatment services, and thus align our work with CORE5PLUS aims.

This project has seen considerable early successes. External evaluation will ensure that we maximise the learning opportunities to inform clinical practice and BBV policy, and to demonstrate that this approach is both effective in reaching disadvantaged groups and cost effective.