State of Play Report
This report outlines the main findings of Vital Statistics 2014 – our seventeenth Gay Men’s Sex Survey (GMSS). The survey is community-recruited and is concerned with HIV and STI infections, sex between men, HIV prevention needs and service uptake.
To read the full report click on link below
Gay and Bisexual Men’s Health Survey
With 6,861 respondents from across Britain, this is the largest survey ever conducted of gay and bisexual men’s health needs in the world. However, it demonstrates that many of those needs are not being met and that there are areas of significant concern – most particularly in mental health and drug use – that have been overlooked by health services which too often focus solely on gay men’s sexual health.
This report also provides hard evidence that gay and bisexual men nationwide are more likely to attempt suicide, self-harm and have depression than their straight peers. They are also more likely to smoke, drink and take illegal drugs. It ill-serves our gay and bisexual communities when these uncomfortable truths are ignored.
Patients accessing healthcare should be confident that they’ll be treated compassionately, confidentially and with complete openness. But this pioneering research reveals that for many gay and bisexual men in Britain this is simply not the case.
These men feel demonstrably neglected by a healthcare system that now has a legal duty to treat everyone equally. Respondents told us that they can’t talk openly to GPs and other healthcare workers and they are too often anxious that their confidentiality will not be protected. This lack of trust has a material impact on whether gay and bisexual men take advice on health issues and access appropriate testing and monitoring services.
These findings send a stark message that Britain’s health services need to rethink how they approach many of their patients. We hope they will rise to that challenge.
Ben Summerskill Chief Executive
To read the full report click on link below
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Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Trans Health Priorities
The National LGB&T (lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans) Partnership, a member of the Department of Health, NHS England, and Public Health England’s Health and Care Voluntary Sector Strategic Partner Programme, is an England-wide group of LGB&T voluntary and community service delivery organisations that are committed to reducing health inequalities and challenging homophobia, biphobia and transphobia within public services.
The National LGB&T Partnership members positively influence the policy, practice and actions of Government and statutory bodies and ensure that health inequalities experienced by LGB&T people are kept high on the Government’s agenda and that best use is made of the experience and expertise found within the LGB&T voluntary and community sector.
As part of this work, the National LGB&T Partnership have identified six key areas we would like to highlight as priorities for commissioners and policy development that we believe will help to reduce the health inequalities faced by LGB&T people.
Each priority area has been split into several sections to support commissioners and policy developers to better understand the importance of the priority for LGB&T communities. These focus on:
• Identifying what the priority is
• Explanation as to its importance for LGB&T communities
• It’s link to health and social care policy, to help identify how its fits the systems priorities
• LGB&T evidence in relation to the priority to support justification of local commissioning
The priority areas have been identified as:
• Sexual Orientation & Trans Status Monitoring
• Changing Attitudes • Access to Services
• Collaboration & Community Engagement
• Co-Production & Co-Delivery
• Raising LGB&T Voices
The final section of this resource summarises the range of publications produced by the National LGB&T Partnership, which we encourage commissioners and policy workers to use in when supporting or commissioning specialist LGB&T service provision. In addition, throughout this resource a range of other relevant resources have been linked to that will inform better practice in commissioning, policy and service delivery and to support commissioners and policy developers in linking to research into the known needs of LGB&T communities.
To read the full report click on link below