Positively UK Podcast

Silvia joined Positively UK in 1999 as a volunteer and was appointed Positively UK’s CEO in February 2019. In this episode, Silvia speaks about female leadership and mentorship. She has represented people with HIV on the British HIV Association (BHIVA) Board, chaired the UK-CAB and represented the Global Network of People Living with HIV at the United Nation. She currently sits on the World Health Organisation advisory board on women and HIV.

Beatrice Osoro firstly started working with Positively Women as a volunteer. Now, she is our Clinical Outreach and Statutory Contract Lead. In this episode, Beatrice shares her experience of servcies for African women in the HIV sector and how she found a safe space at Positively Women.

Jo Manchester was a co-founder of the International Community of Women living with HIV (ICW). You may remember Rebecca Mbewe from Episode 2, she is one of the directors for 4M Mentor Mothers Network and also works on the GROWS project at Positively UK which looks at issues that affect women and ageing. In today’s episode, in honour of International Women’s Day, Jo and Rebecca speak about their experience with Gender and HIV as women. You can find out more information about the ICW's 12 Statements here.

Carolyn Williams was the first peer volunteer at Positively Women and Fiona Pettitt is currently a peer volunteer at Positively UK and is a former Trustee at the ICW. They talk about how they felt supported and held at a time where it had been difficult to access groups specific to women living with HIV.

Cinzia Milesi was one of the first Prison Workers at Positively Women and an instrumental advocate for women in prison and women who use drugs. Sophie Strachan is the CEO of the Sophia Forum and currently sits on the BASHH special interest group for prisons developing quality standards for sexual health in prisons. In this episode, they both share their personal experiences with HIV and Prison and discuss the support they received and still advocate for.

Julie Reynolds was one of  the founders and former editors of Positively Women’s magazine. She currently works in Family Support Management but still is a Peer Mentor with Positively UK and also works with the Bearded&Flushed project. Here, she talks about the reasons why she started the magazine and what it was like for women living with HIV in the early 1990’s.

Rebecca Mbewe is a peer mentor, speaker and trainer with long standing experience of working within the HIV sector with various organisations. Angelina Namiba has over 24 years’ experience of working in the HIV sector. Among many things, they are co-directors of the 4M Mentor Mothers which is a peer-led programme that trains women living with HIV across the UK as Mentor Mothers. Together, they share their experiences navigating through their careers and raising their children whilst living with HIV.

Caroline Guinness and Kate Thomson were both present at the start of Positively Women and are prominent contributors in founding, leading and establishing the group which gave support specifically to women at the time where support was massively lacking. Together, they share their past and current experiences as women living with HIV.

In this weeks podcast we discuss accessing HIV services during the pandemic and thereafter.  Following on from our online discussion, we brought your questions to the panel to find out more on the issues that affect people living with HIV.  As services adapted to the Covid-19 pandemic, many services changed to telephone and online appointments.  You can find a full list of resources and support organisations in our show notes below.

We hope you enjoy the show.

Dr Stuart Flanagan is a Consultant in GU/HIV & Blood Borne Virus (BBV) Medicine at CNWL Trust’s Mortimer Market Centre in Central London and Honorary Consultant at University College London Hospital. He is the Viral Hepatitis Lead for CNWL Trust.  Stuart was an NIHR Clinical Research Fellow in Hepatology on the HepFREE study (testing for HBV and HCV in Primary care), which was published in Jan 2019 in the Lancet Gastro & Hep.  He is chair of the BASHH HIV/BBV Special interest Group and the organising committee for the annual BASHH HIV Masterclass conference. Stuart has been a medical broadcaster for the BBC (BBC Radio 1 Surgery, CBBC’s Newsround, BBC Breakfast). He wrote and presented a BBC Radio 4 documentary on antimicrobial resistance The Path Of Least Resistance, available to listen to via BBC iPlayer.  

Dr Richard Ma is a GP principal in London and NIHR Doctoral Research Fellow at Imperial College London. He has a research interest in delivery of sexual and reproductive health in primary care. His current research focuses on equity and impact of contraceptive provision in general practice. He has held positions including: member of RCGP’s Sex Drugs and Blood Borne Virus Group, National Chlamydia Screening Advisory Group, expert member on NICE Guidelines on Preventing Sexually Transmitted Infections and under-18 conceptions and more recently expert member for NICE Quality Standards Advisory Committee on Contraception and NICE Scholar. He frequently writes and lectures on all matters related to sexual health/HIV and campaigns for better experience for LGBTQ+ patients in general practice. Most recently, he has been one of the founding members of #PrideRCGP programme, set up to improve experiences and well-being of LGBTQ+ community of peers and patients.

Shaun Watson has worked in and around HIV since 1989 initially as an HIV link nurse in Hull (ensuring that healthcare professionals were educated and people living with HIV received appropriate care) and a volunteer counsellor at AIDS Action. Since 2005 I have worked as a community HIV clinical nurse specialist in central London and Chair of the National HIV Nurses Association for the past 4 years.

Dr Nicola Mackie is a Consultant Physician and Clinical Director for HIV at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. Her research was in the field of HIV-1 drug resistance and she runs the weekly Virtual Clinic. Although her main interest is clinical work, she is involved with writing national guidelines; examining for dipHIV and  teaching for BASHH and EACS. She is a Trustee of the British HIV Association and a member of SWIFT (Supporting Women with HIV Information Network).

Resources & support organisations 

The Mortimer Market Centre - https://www.shl.uk/clinic/mortimer-market-centre 

Jefferiss Wing Sexual Health - https://www.imperial.nhs.uk/our-services/sexual-health-and-hiv 

Positively UK podcasts https://positivelyuk.org/lgbt-podcast/ 

Dean Street Sexual Health https://dean.st/