Website of the Department of Health

Tackling HIV stigma and discrimination - Department of Health implementation plan

In December 2005, we issued a draft action plan to tackle HIV related stigma and discrimination for consultation. Much work has been undertaken across government since we published the draft plan, including the amendment to the Disability Discrimination Act, work to address equal access to health care, and equality issues around gender, race and sexuality.

As a result of this, and other work undertaken by key non-statutory agencies working with people living with HIV in England, we considered that, rather than revise the draft plan issued in 2005, the issues would be best pursued through the publication of a web-based implementation plan which would take forward the work.

The implementation plan includes:

• an update on the latest HIV data to set the context in which we are working
• details of the three DH funded projects to address the key issues around HIV related stigma and discrimination (£150,000)
• details of how we plan to strengthen our key HIV contracts to address stigma (£100,000)
• an outline of our plans to strengthen cross government working on stigma involving key non-government organisation (NGO) stakeholders 
• a summary of DH work in the context of wider government initiatives to promote equality and human rights, including international work undertaken by the Department for International Development.   

We see this DH implementation plan as a key first step and a demonstration of the Department’s commitment to work with others in this important area.  As this work develops we will update this plan, disseminate findings on the work set out in this document and review the need for additional work.

• Download Tackling HIV stigma and discrimination (PDF, 443K)