Positive Ageing Conference a great success.

This week Waverley Care co-hosted the first conference to address 'HIV and Ageing'  in Scotland.

The conference was hosted in partnership with Terrence Higgins Trust through our joint project ‘Positive Scotland‘, and took place on Tuesday 19th April at the Royal College of Physicians, in Edinburgh.

The conference was a great success with over 100 delegates participating. The scene of the conference was set by four powerful presentations from people living with HIV, over the age of 50, addressing their concerns about their future as they age with HIV. The issues of stigma and disclosure were concurrent throughout these presentations.

Other insightful presentation were given by Dr Gordon Scott (GUM Service NHS Lothian), Callum Chomczuk (the policy officer for Age Scotland), Gary Brough (Terrence Higgins Trust) on the THT and Age UK Research looking at the issues for people over the age of 50 with HIV, and from Alastair Hudson (HIV Stigma Index).

The afternoon workshops focused on the following issues:

• disclosure and discrimination;
• money, housing and welfare rights;
• sexual health, sexual identity and sexual lives;
• physical and emotional impact of ageing with HIV.

The findings from the workshops and the conference will be written up into a conference report which will be published on the Waverley Care and Terrence Higgins websites. The conference report will also provide a clear steer for Positive Scotland in taking services forward to support people as they age with this condition.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all involved in the organisation of the conference, including our key speakers and a special thanks to our funders MSD, the Stigma Index and the Big Lottery Fund .