Post by Richard Angell OBE

This week I was invited by Gemma Tumelty and BB Partners to join a panel on “The Future of the Progressive Project: Achieving Change in a Time of Political Flux”. Ryan Wain gave a sober account of what the country wants and what the new Labour administration might provide as it manages three disparate audiences: the Parliamentary party/MPs, the voters and the bond markets. Andy Burnham’s ‘Makerfield Test’ will be a struggle for progressive causes but if things are getting worse for key parts of the country (average wages in his new constituency have fallen not increased in the last decade) then these issues need to be addressed. The voters are never wrong, especially when they use their vote as a cry for help when all other requests have gone unheard. Joe Ryrie, Co-Founder of Smartphone Free Childhood talked us through the most amazing campaign on changing tech attitudes. Wherever you sit on the issue, how he, his wife and their friends and fellow WhatsApp group members, have given parents agency where previous none existed is impressive. In my contribution – about five decades of work from Terrence Higgins Trust – I couldn’t help but think how many fewer lives might have been lost if the Dr. Rupert Whitaker OBEs, Martyn Butlers, Tony Whiteheads, Janet Greens and Nick Partridges of this world had WhatsApp groups in the 1980s. The way they mobilised at speed – forming the first HIV response charity, organising fundraisers, distributing safer sex messages and establishing the Buddy System so no one died alone – with analogue tools is impressive. Imagine if their insight, determination and skills has been matched with social media and AI? As Pride Month comes to and event and Pride Season fills my every weekend, I think about the change we still have to make. Opt-out A&E HIV testing has proved so effective – 1900 new diagnosis, 93% of whom would never have had an HIV test elsewhere and of them first 800 diagnosis we have prevented 187 HIV related death and 28 onward transmissions – it needs expanding to GP surgeries. To be honest, in the meantime I would settle for no one leaving a sexual health appointment without having had an HIV test. PrEP should be available online country-wide, in the NHS App and from community pharmacy. And people living with HIV should be able to live stigma free. The change Terrence Higgins Trust and its partners have brought about since Terry Higgins died is second to none. From a virus with no name to treatment that can help you live a health life and have sex without worry of transmission is remarkable. Today we must finish the job. We could be the generation to end this epidemic, be the first country in the world to do it and the first virus stopped without a vaccine or a cure. I can’t think of a more important cause to try make happen. Terrence Higgins Trust can only make change with your help. Please give anything you can afford. https://lnkd.in/eQVdTEa7