UK to screen all new healthcare workers for HIV?:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
The UK's Department of Health is considering plans to screen all new healthcare workers for HIV, as recommended by a parliamentary expert group. The group was set up in August 2001, on the request of ministers, to review the policy options for offering or requiring HIV testing for all new healthcare workers. "The government is currently considering their recommendations," a DoH spokesperson told Clinica. The department could not confirm when it expects to announce its response, nor whether screening for other conditions was being considered. Media reports suggest that over 700 HIV-positive nurses may have entered the NHS in 2001, on the basis that almost 2,800 nurses were recruited from South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe, where HIV affects between one in three and one in five adults.