The Department of Health this week announced the 66 ‘indicators’ with which the performance of the new public health system will be measured. To the relief of HIV campaigners, these include a measure of late HIV diagnosis.
From 2013, management of the public health system in England will move from NHS primary care trusts to local authorities (local councils). While the government dislikes the idea of ‘targets’, it has set out a list of 66 ‘indicators’ with which local authorities will be able to measure their progress. Each of these should contribute to two overarching ‘outcomes’ concerning life expectancy and health inequalities.
Data will be produced for each local authority, showing the proportion of people newly diagnosed with HIV who have a CD4 count below 350 or who develop AIDS within three months of diagnosis. Inclusion of this indicator should encourage efforts to expand HIV testing and to reduce late HIV diagnosis.
Other indicators include diagnoses of chlamydia in young people, teenage pregnancy rates, completion of TB treatment and deaths from liver disease.
Deborah Jack of the National AIDS Trust (NAT) commented: “NAT, along with the rest of the HIV sector, has long campaigned for late diagnosis to be recognised within the Public Health Outcomes Framework, and it is a testament to this tireless effort that this has now come to fruition. We now need local authorities and the local NHS to respond to this indicator, assessing how they are doing in reducing late diagnosis and planning and investing to improve testing uptake.”