Sexual Health Service Staff Members Receive Awards at BASHH 2023 Conference

We are delighted to announce that colleagues from 56 Dean Street, Sexual Health London and John Hunter Clinic have been recognised by the British Association of Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) for their outstanding contribution to sexual health care.

Dr Alan McOwen, consultant at 56 Dean Street, received the Outstanding Achievement award for his longstanding contribution to LGBTQ+ care. Alan co-founded 56 Dean Street and led the service for over a decade where he introduced rapid STI diagnostics and low cost PrEP before it was available on the NHS. Not only this, but Alan went on to mastermind campaigns like #TimeToTest and #PrEpAwarenessWeek, helping more people to test for HIV and gain access to PrEP.

On news of the award, Alan said, ‘It’s lovely to find out that colleagues from around the country rate you so highly. I’m absolutely delighted’.

Alan wasn’t the only winner of the day.  SHL Service Manager, Sophie Jones, won best Nurse / Health Adviser Oral presentation at the BASHH annual conference in Llandudno for their abstract and presentation on the evaluation of PrEP signposting via the SHL service website. Sophie aims to continue with this piece of work to ensure that all service users who require PrEP are correctly identified and proactively followed up and linked in to care.

Edu Peres and Taiana Silva Carvalho, Senior Clinical Fellows for HIV/GUM, also took home the Best Oral Prize, for their project on Latin Americans. Their project, titled ‘A demographic analysis of Latin American sexual and reproductive health service users’, was a 12-month analysis of all Latin American patients attending a central London Trust's Sexual and Reproductive Health Services (SRHS) during 2022. They raised awareness about the lack of an ethnicity option for Latin Americans in the UK and suggested actions to tackle inequalities in access.

Congratulations to all of our award winning colleagues!