Commended
Love Yourself – Get Tested. HOMER P2P Hepatitis C Mentoring Roadshow
by CRI and The Hepatitis C Trust
Hampshire Operational Model of Effective Recovery (HOMER) is the adult substance misuse service that runs across the county of Hampshire. HOMER offers a range of holistic recovery-based interventions, including opportunities to mentor and volunteer. Under this umbrella in 2012, the team set up P2P (peer to peer) hepatitis C mentoring, run in partnership with The Hepatitis C Trust. This group launched a hepatitis C testing roadshow called Love Yourself – Get Tested. The team visited 10 sites over five days and service users identified at risk of hepatitis C were invited to attend and offered an oral swab test to check for hepatitis C antibodies. All service users diagnosed with antibodies had a care pathway put in place.
Judges comment:
"This is a good example of multi-agency collaboration. Using patients to raise awareness with hard to reach groups is commendable – peer-to-peer support is clearly working well."