National HIV Testing Week

HIV test kit distribution in barbershops and hair salons for National HIV Testing Week

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Barber in front of barber shop

People of Black African ethnicity are one of the groups disproportionately affected by HIV in England, according to surveillance data from the UK Health Security Agency. An estimated 1600 people of Black African ethnicity are estimated to be living with undiagnosed HIV in England, making up 34% of the estimated total of 4700 people. This is disproportionate when considering that people of Black African ethnicity made up less than 3% of the UK population in the most recent census.

To help address this, during National HIV Testing Week, HIV organisations are working together to make HIV testing easier to access – including by making it possible to pick up free tests in barbershops and hair salons. The organisations involved are the African Institute for Social Development (AISD) in Nottingham, Yorkshire Mesmac in Leeds, the African Advocacy Foundation in London, and Terrence Higgins Trust, which are co-ordinating the national campaign.

Why barbershops and hair salons?

It is well documented that barbershops and hair salons are pivotal in Black communities as hubs where people share stories and discuss issues affecting their communities. HIV Preventions England’s partner organisations piloted this initiative during National HIV Testing Week 2024, and it was successful at opening up conversations about HIV amongst individuals who had not recently considered getting tested for HIV.

Following the successes of the COVID-19 vaccination programme, initiatives to educate people about other health conditions via barbershops and hair salons have been expanding. Hypertension testing is also being implemented in barbershops in various parts of the country.

By raising the issue of HIV testing in barbershops and hair salons, we facilitate conversations that might not usually happen as there is vast evidence that people in the community tend not to talk about it because of the stigma of HIV.

Juddy Otti of the Africa Advocacy Foundation said,

“Providing testing in Black community barbershops and hair salons is crucial because these spaces are more than just places for grooming—they are trusted cultural hubs where real conversations happen. By bringing health screening services into these familiar environments, we break down barriers to access, encourage early diagnosis , and empower communities to take ownership of their well-being.”

Amdani Juma of the AISD, added that:

“Community barbershops in Nottingham City and surrounding areas have been part of HIV and sexual health prevention work for more than decade. They are trusted by their regular customers and most people discuss freely about sex, politics and football matches in barbershops. People can be as loud as they wish to and most of the time people exchange views and opinions without fear of being judged. People find barbershops liberating that’s why we have been successful in introducing National HIV Testing Week. “

HIV self-testing kits

HIV self-testing kits provide results that the individual can read without sending them to a lab for analysis. For this initiative, people will be given the option of using either a finger prick test or an oral swab test. The finger prick test will give a result in 15 minutes, and the oral swab test will provide a result in 20 minutes.

During National HIV Testing Week, anyone in England can also order a free HIV test, which they can do at home via freetesting.hiv. The test arrives in plain packaging, and testing for HIV is free, easy, quick and confidential.

This project is supported by  Newfoundland Diagnostics and Invitech Ltd, the licensed distributors of OraQuick HIV tests in the UK.

Leading HIV organisations team-up to support GPs on when to test for HIV

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Two major HIV organisations have produced a new series of short videos for GPs around indicator conditions for HIV. The initiative is a collaboration between HIV-charity Terrence Higgins Trust and Fast Track Cities London, a partnership of organisations tackling HIV in the capital, and comes ahead of National HIV Testing Week, which kicks off on 10 February.

GPs are a crucial part of the England’s testing infrastructure, with over 139,000 tests carried out in primary care in 2023. However, 41% of people are still diagnosed at a late stage of infection, and an estimated 4,700 people in England are living with undiagnosed HIV.

The aim of the videos is to remind GPs of indicator conditions which should act as a prompt to test a patient for HIV, to try to ensure people get diagnosed as early as possible.

Key points mentioned in the videos include when a patient has possible immunosuppression or malignancy, has experienced a few common back-to-back illnesses, has symptoms which are taking longer to resolve than expected, or has slightly abnormal FBC or LFTs. All of these can be indicators to a GP to test a patient for HIV.

Islington based GP, Dr Sam Preston, a Fast-Track Cities GP Champion, who is featured in the videos, said “HIV testing week is a great opportunity to increase testing to make sure people aren’t diagnosed late and they can get onto effective HIV treatment as soon as possible. As GPs we are seeing 100s of people in our local community every day who could be missing out on a HIV test because they don’t think they are at risk.  The toolkit we’ve put together for GPs prompts them to remember to do an HIV test when this is necessary for example if the GP is worried about immunosuppression.”

The videos are in support of National HIV Testing Week. National HIV Testing Week is a campaign by Terrence Higgins Trust and commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care to promote regular HIV testing, particularly among the groups most at risk of HIV.

During the week, anyone in England can order a free HIV test to do at home, but the campaign also promotes people considering testing in whatever way they feel comfortable, such as at a sexual health service or with their GPs.

The GP-focused content will be shared by the Royal College of GPs, Integrated Care Boards and via advertising on LinkedIn.

Watch the five videos

Worried about possible malignancy?

A few common illnesses back-to-back

Worried about possible immunosuppression

Slightly abnormal FBC or LFTs

Symptoms taking longer to resolve than expected

Over 20,0000 Postal HIV test kits ordered around National HIV Testing Week 2016

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The promotion of the national HIV home sampling service between 7 November 2016 and 8 January 2017 resulted in over 20,000 kits ordered, a substantially larger number compared to the same period in the previous year.

The national HIV home-sampling service

Since 2015, Public Health England (PHE) and Local Authorities have provided a national HIV home-sampling service for the most at-risk populations for HIV acquisition. For most parts of the year, the free test kits are available only in areas of England where local authorities choose to fund the service. However, during periods of national promotion, PHE fund the service across the whole of England.

The most notable period of national promotion is around National HIV Testing Week (NHTW), which occurs in November each year. HIV Prevention England (HPE) promote the home-sampling kits in the lead-up to, during, and after NHTW, encouraging people to order a kit online, take their own sample and return it by post to a laboratory for testing and results management. The test is highly accurate four weeks after infection, and almost 100 per cent accurate after eight weeks.

These kits differ from HIV self-testing kits, which do not need to be analysed in a lab: individuals get an immediate result that they can read themselves. The self-test is most accurate 12 weeks or more after infection.

Home-sampling kits ordered

The promotion in the period around NHTW 2016 resulted in 20,175 home-sampling kits ordered between November 7 2016 and 8 January 2017. This is 4,405 kits more compared to the same period in 2015-2016.

Table 1: home-sampling tests ordered during the full promotion period

DescriptionNov 2015 to Jan 2016Nov 2016 to January 2017Change
Number of kits ordered15,77020,175up 4,405
Number of kits returned7,98510,421up 2,436
Return rate50.6%51.7%up 1.1%

Table 2: home-sampling tests ordered during NHTW

Description21 Nov to 29 Nov 201519 Nov to 27 Nov 2016Change
Number of kits ordered5,7775,740down 37
Number of kits returned2,8953,081up 186
Return rate50.1%53.7%up 3.6%

Results management

Test results are managed by a community-based organisation partner who provides further support and guidance on next steps. Tests give ‘reactive’ or ‘non-reactive’ results. Reactive results are further classified into ‘high’ and ‘low’ reactives, based on a particular cut-off index. While high reactives are more likely to have an HIV infection confirmed, all reactive results are immediately referred to appropriate services for further testing and clinical confirmation.

The previous year, 1.1 per cent of analysed tests were reactive and of these, 0.7 per cent were high reactives. This information can be looked at alongside HIV positive test results in other testing settings, including specialist sexual health clinics and general practice settings:

Table 3: results comparison by setting (PHE, 2016)

Specialist sexual health clinics
Positivity rate for service users (2015 data)		0.3% (2,850/998,503)
Specialist sexual health clinics
Positivity rate for service users (2015 data)		0.3% (2,850/998,503)
National home-sampling service
High reactive rate for service users (Nov 2015 – Sept 2016 data)*		0.7% (128/18,270)

* high reactive test results likely to be confirmed as positive

Currently, 85 local authorities have committed to implementing the national scheme. Considering the increasing demand for the service, the relatively high reactivity rate and the reasonable cost of the service, there is scope for broader action on making postal tests available and promoting them to communities and individuals who may be at a higher risk for HIV acquisition.

More information

NICE/PHE guideline on increasing HIV testing uptake

The full report for 2015-2016 on the national home-sampling scheme will be available from Public Health England in March 2017.