HIV and Sexual Health services shortlisted for HSJ Digital Awards

Photo: Several staff from the SHL team

We are delighted to announce that our HIV and sexual health services have been shortlisted for two HSJ Digital Awards for their pioneering work in digital solutions.  

The first is for Sexual Health London (SHL), an e-service that provides free access to sexual health testing for patients living in London. During the pandemic, SHL significantly expanded while access to physical clinics was disrupted. It introduced domestic abuse screening and support, provision of contraception remotely and online support and treatment for partners of service users with chlamydia. SHL also uses digital solutions to identify people eligible for PrEP, offers unlimited STI testing for people taking PrEP, and signposts people to mpox vaccination services. Despite the recovery of many face-to-face clinics post-pandemic, the number of people using SHL continues to increase and to date 2.2 million online orders for STI kits have been made, making it the largest publicly funded STI service in the world. SHL has been nominated for an Optimising pathways through digital award.

Photo: Some of Klick team

The second nomination is for our HIV team for the Klick service. First introduced as a pilot in Kobler clinic in 2018, Klick is a pathway of care for people living with HIV based around an app which allows patients to book and reschedule appointments remotely as well as request medication and receive messages from healthcare professionals. To date, 5,200 patients from our Kobler and Dean Street clinics have registered for Klick, and we have over 2,000 monthly app users. Klick has also enabled the expansion of our nurse-led clinics and has been shortlisted for the HSJ Digital award Empowering Patients Through Digital.

Congratulations to these pioneering services, and good luck to the HIV and sexual health team with the awards.