As of today, Wednesday 11th October 2017, NHS England have announced that the England PrEP IMPACT has launched!
But! Before you all go rushing out to your local sexual health clinic there are a few things you need to be aware of.
To find out when your clinic is enrolling regularly check the trial website for updated information.
The trial team are expecting an initial surge for demand and clinics are doing their best to accommodate this. There are a few things we can do to help.
- Check the trial website for your local/usual sexual health clinic’s progress status. Most of the 70 clinics that have so far committed are currently completing final stages of staff training. We have been reliably informed by the trial team that most of these 70 clinics across England will also be live “by November”.
- The trial team have agreed to update the trial site daily as new clinics open for recruitment. We advise you to check in on this regularly.
- They are aware that some clinics are compiling shortlists of interested patients. Please contact your clinic if you have not already done so. There is an official trial email address which some clinics have been directing people to. Please note: the trial team will not be dealing with enrolment via this email address. This is the responsibility of each individual trial site.
- They request that you wait until your regular clinic opens as part of the trial rather than register at a new trial clinic. That said, they completely understand that expecting people to wait for access to NHS PrEP will be unacceptable to some, and ask for some goodwill here. The trial team are pushing really hard for most of the 70 initial sites to be live as soon as possible with the remaining 130 clinics following quickly behind.
- All sites are expected to be up and running by April 2018 at the latest.
- If you need to transfer to another clinic during the trial (for example, if you move to a new town or city) then you will need to speak to your original trial clinic. They will arrange for the necessary information and papers to be given to the new trial clinic.
- It is important that participants only enrol at one clinic. If a person signs up at more than one, they may be taking a place on the trial that could have gone to someone else.
- Please ensure you have read and followed the instructions here to be trial ready.
- Outside of the trial, genuine generic PrEP can be purchased here.
Please note: the PrEP Impact Trial website will now be the most central and up to date source for trial related information.
If you have condom-less sex while waiting for access to PrEP and think you might have been exposed to HIV you can access PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis) from a sexual health clinic or A&E department. PEP must be started with 72 hours of possible risk of exposure.
Additional information can also be found here: