Category: Uncategorized

Our team were thrilled to have received the following feedback on the service on the HealthWatch Herefordshire website.

Healthwatch Herefordshire helps local residents get the best out of local health and social care.  It is about voices influencing the services are used. It gives residents a powerful voice locally and nationally. Whether this is improving services today or helping to shape them for tomorrow.

Judgmental doesn’t exist in their vocabulary.

Visiting a sexual health clinic, particularly a first time, is often daunting with the fear of being judged outweighing the need to go. Thankfully Hereford possesses a gem of a clinic…

Professional and friendly

I visit every 3 months as I’m part of the Prep trial. I’ve never felt a stigma visiting as the staff are very friendly and extremely professional.

Excellent care

I was seen on the same day due to symptoms having arisen. The lead clinician was beyond excellent – very caring and very helpful. Definitely recommend this service.

You can read more about Healthwatch Herefordshire here.

Sexual Health 4 Herefordshire Covid-19 Pandemic Information

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, we have had to make some changes to how we deliver our clinical services at Sexual Health 4 Herefordshire.  

In order to maintain social distancing and keep you safe, we are no longer offering a walk-in service (unless you are under 18 or have concerns about your immediate safety). If you have symptoms, concerns about your sexual health or contraception then please call us on 01432 483693 (option 1 or 2) – Your call will be answered by a trained Healthcare professional who will ask you some key questions about your health and well-being. If you require further support you will be called back by one of our nursing triage team and if appropriate, offered an appointment to attend the service.

The door to the clinic is now on a buzzer and will be answered by a member of the team who will ask you some quick coronavirus symptom questions and explain what to do next. We request that you attempt to wear a face covering when making your way to the clinic.  Please be mindful to attend your appointment on time to enable our team the time to clean and prepare the clinic space for you.

Our priority is to make sure you are seen as quickly as possible by the most appropriate clinician. We will continue to provide booked appointments for people with symptoms, PrEP and contraceptive advice or treatment. A member of the team may call you before your appointment to ask some questions related to your current health status to make your visit as easy as possible.

We have extended our online home testing service. This means that if you have no symptoms or would like a routine sexual health check, you can order a test online here.  If you live in Wales or our neighbouring counties then please check out our online testing page (link) where you can find info on ordering a postal testing kit. Please be aware that the current pressures on Royal Mail postal services have meant that kits may take a few days longer to be processed.

From Jan 2022, government guidance depending, we are hoping to reintroduce the walk in clinic for Young people on a Wednesday afternoon.

We appreciate your consideration and support in helping us to keep you and our team safe.

New research released has revealed the vast majority of people (84%) are abstaining from sex outside their immediate household because of the COVID-19 lockdown.

This drastic change in behaviour could have a huge impact in the fight against another pandemic, with sexual health experts heralding the UK’s opportunity to ‘break the chain’ on HIV transmission and move closer to the Government’s goal of ending new cases by 2030.

The Terence Higgins Trust, the leading HIV and sexual health charity is launching a wide-scale push on postal HIV testing over the next two weeks (ending 19th June 2020) in order to maximise the unexpected opportunity one pandemic has had on another.

And timing is everything as it can take up to a month from potential HIV exposure for tests to detect the virus, which means anyone who hasn’t had sex since before lockdown will get an accurate result. Anyone who receives a positive result can then access the treatment they need to stay healthy and prevent HIV from being passed on.

Free HIV testing kits are available via post nationally, where you test yourself and get a result within 15 minutes.

Anyone can be affected by HIV but the groups most impacted by the virus are particularly encouraged to test. In the UK that is gay and bisexual men, men and women from black African communities, and trans people.

Those who receive a reactive result will still be able to access the face-to-face support necessary to confirm the result and access free HIV treatment, with social distancing measures in place by contacting the team on 01432 483693.

Your free test can be ordered here

Public Health England has published its review of COVID-19 disparities, looking at how the impact of the disease varies according to ethnicity and other factors, such as age, sex, deprivation, occupation, and geography. A link to the full report can be found here.

The review found that:

• People of Bangladeshi ethnicity have around twice the risk of death as White British people.
• People of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Other Asian, Caribbean, and Other Black ethnicity had between 10 and 50% higher risk of death.
• Death rates in the most deprived areas are more than double those in the least deprived areas.
• People over 80 were seventy times more likely to die than those under 40.
• There was a strong regional pattern, with London showing the highest diagnoses and death rates.

The analysis was not able to account for other factors, such as comorbidities, occupation, and household composition. These are important, as there are high proportions of BAME workers in key occupations, and many from BAME groups tend to live in larger and multi-generational households, both of which can lead to higher risk of exposure to the virus.

It appears from the PHE analysis that the impact of COVID-19 follows a similar pattern to so many of the deeply ingrained public health challenges that we face – from morbid obesity to deaths from smoking. It is always the most vulnerable that are impacted by public health challenges, and that has a good deal to do with the environments and social determinants of health which people face.

Here at Solutions 4 Health we will continue to both provide and develop innovative, sustainable lifestyle and clinical services that improve healthcare for all, especially those who experience inequitable health outcomes.

Sexual Health 4 Herefordshire Covid-19 Pandemic Information

Due to the current coronavirus outbreak, we have had to make some changes to how we deliver our services at Sexual Health 4 Herefordshire.  Following the national guidance (BASHH & FSRH) we have introduced a new telephone triage line.

If you have symptoms, concerns about your sexual health or contraception then please call us on 01432 483693 (option 1 or 2) – Your call will be answered by a trained Healthcare professional who will ask you some key questions about your health and well-being. If you require further support you will be called back by one of our nursing team and if appropriate, offered an appointment to attend the service.

In order to keep you safe and maintain social distancing measures in our clinical areas, we will be offering booked appointments rather than a walk-in service (unless you are a young person or you have concerns about your safety). The door to the clinic is now on a buzzer and will be answered by a member of the team who will ask you some quick coronavirus symptom questions and explain what to do next. Please be mindful to attend your appointment on time.

Our priority is to make sure you are seen as quickly as possible by the most appropriate clinician. We will continue to provide booked appointments for people with symptoms, PrEP and contraceptive advice or treatment. A member of the team may call you before your appointment to ask some questions related to your current health status to make your visit as easy as possible.

We have extended our online home testing service. This means that if you have no symptoms or would like a routine sexual health check, you can order a test online here. Please be aware that the current pressures on Royal Mail postal services have meant that kits may take a few days longer to be processed.

We appreciate your consideration and support in helping us to keep you and our team safe.

The single most important action we can all take, in fighting coronavirus, is to stay at home in order to protect the NHS and save lives. But if you decide to have sex then here are some useful tips to keeping yourself and others safe:

The virus is spread from person to person. The government has advised us that social distancing means keeping two metres apart from anyone outside your home.

Someone who does not have symptoms of high fever, a cough or shortness of breath may still have the virus and be capable of spreading it further.

The coronavirus can be spread through saliva, so kissing would be high risk for being infected or passing it on.

There is still a lot for us to learn about Covid-19 and sexual risk. We know that it has been found to be present in faeces of people infected with the virus. This means sexual practices like rimming or mouth to anal sex may increase your risk of getting or transmitting the virus.

Coronavirus has not yet been found to exist in semen or vaginal fluids but very few studies have been carried out to look at this.

If you decide that you would like to have sex, then the safest person you can have sex with during this time is yourself! Now is the time to get to know your own body and work out what you enjoy. The key advice would be to make sure you wash your hands and any toys you use for at least 20 seconds using warm soapy water.

The next safest option would be to have sex with your regular partner or partners that live within your household. We know that the more people you have close contact with, the more likely you will be to come in contact with Covid-19, so keeping your sexual partners reduced during this time will limit your own exposure. Please do be careful – this is perhaps not the best time for attending any sex parties or group sex activity.

If you enjoy meeting sexual partners online through “Hook-up” or dating apps, this would perhaps not be the best time to be arranging any face-to-face (or genital-to-genital!) dates. If you work in the sex industry, then we would advise no direct physical sexual contact with clients or colleagues. Video dates, pay per view websites or sexting may be something that you might enjoy and carry no risk of Covid-19, but please be careful with your own privacy and do not share any sexually explicit content without considering how this might be used. For further information on the coronavirus and ways to keep yourself safe, then please visit the NHS website here.