Brighton & Hove as a Fast Track City
The Fast-Track Cities initiative is a global partnership between a network of over 90 high HIV burden cities, where political leaders, affected communities, city health officials, clinical and service providers, and other stakeholders work together to accelerate their local HIV responses. It is led by four core partners – the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC), the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), and the City of Paris. The initiative’s aim is to build upon, strengthen, and leverage existing HIV programs and resources and galvanise action to support locally coordinated, city-wide responses to end HIV as a public health threat by 2030 and achieving the 90-90-90 targets by 2020.
This means working across the city to achieve:
- 90% of people living with HIV (PLHIV) knowing their HIV status
- 90% of PLHIV who know their HIV-positive status on antiretroviral therapy (ART)
- 90% of PLHIV on ART achieving viral suppression
- Zero discrimination and stigma
In 2016 Brighton & Hove became the first UK city to have “Fast Track City” status approved and in 2017 The Mayor of the City of Brighton & Hove, Councillor Mo Marsh signed the Paris Declaration on HIV Fast Track Cities. The ceremony was also attended by Baroness Gould of Potternewton, Cllr Warren Morgan (leader of BHCC), Geoff Raw (Chief Executive of BHCC), Cllr Daniel Yates, Professor Jane Anderson, Sue Riley, (THT Positive Voices), the Martin Fisher Foundation Trustees, Stephen Nicholson (Sexual Health Commissioner), James Ledward (GScene) and many other city-wide stakeholders.
OUR VISION IS TO GET TOWARDS ZERO HIV STIGMA, ZERO NEW HIV INFECTIONS AND ZERO DEATHS FROM HIV IN BRIGHTON & HOVE BY 2030.
The Towards Zero HIV Strategy explains what has already been achieved in Brighton & Hove, and illustrates what needs to be done. The strategy has been reviewed and endorsed by stakeholders across the city, including Brighton & Hove City Council.
This is how the Brighton & Hove City Council, the Martin Fisher Foundation and the Stakeholder Partnership all work together.
The groups will work together to plan and monitor a range of innovative activities to work towards zero new HIV infections, zero deaths from HIV and zero stigma in Brighton & Hove. This joint work will bring together key partners and stakeholders across the city with knowledge, passion and expertise in these areas.
You can read or download the finished strategy document here.
We also work in partnership with the following organisations:
Brighton & Hove Towards Zero Taskforce Annual Report 2020
Comments from the Joint Chairs: Dr Gill Dean and Claire Moonam
Along with the rest of the UK, Brighton & Hove have exceeded the 90-90-90 targets, with 93% of people living with HIV knowing their status (based on national data), 99% of those being on treatment and 98% of those on treatment having undetectable virus in their blood stream. We now have the plans and structure in place to head towards the next testing goal of 95% and ultimately towards 100-100-100 for the testing and treatment goals.
Being a part of the international Fast Track Cities Initiative has given us a real opportunity to learn from the rest of the world’s progress and start to disseminate our own learning and expertise to other partners. In June 2019 we took part in the first UK and Ireland FTC Workshop, and in September the International FTC Conference was in London. Both events gave some real opportunities to become better connected with other Fast Track Cities, share best practice and support each other through joint initiatives.
The Toward Zero Taskforce has provided the structure for the relevant people to come together and focus on how we can intensify our HIV prevention and treatment work. The Taskforce and the Implementation Groups have really ensured that all key players are involved, aligned and working together towards the common goals and stakeholder meetings have enabled community engagement across a wide number of groups. We promote a philosophy of collaboration across the partnerships with established work streams and action plans in place. It is a real pleasure to work with such ambitious and person centred teams with ‘can do’ approaches to improvements and innovations.
During year two of the Brighton & Hove Fast Track City all the implementation groups have continued to gather and consolidate increasingly accurate current data around the HIV epidemic and levels of HIV stigma in Brighton & Hove which has enabled us to strategically plan our activities in a rapidly changing landscape.
2019 saw the launch of the magnificent Martin Fisher Foundation bus, a brilliant collaborative effort of the Foundation, Daniel Locke (Designer) and Brighton & Hove buses. We believe we’re the first city in the world to have an HIV themed pubic information bus, allowing passengers to read up to date information about HIV testing, treatment and prevention. But there is so much more to do to ensure Brighton & Hove becomes a Stigma-free city. By empowering people living with HIV to speak freely about their health, HIV will be viewed in the same way as any other chronic health condition. Tackling stigma will be at the heart of all our actions over the coming years. We’re so lucky in this City to have such a well-developed community and voluntary sector who will be key to this process.
Please read in full our 2020 Annual FTC Report.
Click here to access the UK and Ireland Fast-Track Cities web portal showing dashboards tracking progress against the initiative’s targets, mapping HIV services, and sharing best practices across the Fast-Track Cities network. Brighton and Hove Fast Track City is linked to the London Fast Track City website Click here
