Garry Brough: Nurses must show knowledge and sensitivity in dealing with HIV

Nurses are uniquely well placed to provide person-centred care for people with HIV, but they need to give up outdated attitudes and view it as a manageable long-term condition

I’ve been involved in HIV peer support since I co-founded the Bloomsbury Patients Network in 1999. In my current role at advocacy organisation Positively UK , I have trained 400 people as peer mentors.

There’s not one training session in which participants haven’t brought up examples of discrimination or lack of awareness of appropriate infection control from healthcare professionals outside the silo of the sexual health or HIV clinic.

In fact, HIV discrimination is unfortunately most commonly reported in healthcare settings. People with HIV continue to report experiences of nurses double gloving, having ‘HIV’ written in large red