Welcome to The Pannel Suite
The Pannel Suite is the name we give to our service for adults living with HIV.
This leaflet aims to tell you about the services offered by The Pannel Suite team. Our goal is to provide excellent care and to help you to lead a healthy life. We wish to keep you informed and involved in every stage of your care, to enable you to make the best decisions about your health.
Pannel Suite HIV clinics are held at:
Sexual Health Dorset @Bournemouth
66-68 Palmerston Road
Boscombe
Bournemouth, BH1 4HT
Our colleagues in Weymouth also run an HIV service.
What do we do?
The Pannel Suite provides diagnosis, treatment and care of adults with HIV infection, including specialist support for adolescents transitioning their care. We offer:
- Support for those newly diagnosed and their partners.
- Advice around transmission and risk reduction.
- Partner notification and support around informing partners and other contacts.
- Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for partners
- All outpatient treatment and care including blood tests, free prescription of HIV medications, dealing with side effects and adherence support.
- Home delivery of HIV medication.
- Screening and treatment for sexually transmitted infections.
- Viral hepatitis screening, vaccination where indicated and onward referral for treatment of Hepatitis B and C.
- HPV vaccinations to those eligible.
- Annual cervical screening for women aged 25-64.
- Free condoms and provision of contraception, mental health support or referral.
- Alcohol and drug misuse advice or referral.
- Preconception advice and management of HIV during pregnancy (in partnership with other services).
- Diagnosis, treatment and prevention of opportunistic infections.
- Inpatient care, in partnership with medical colleagues at University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust.
How do our clinics run?
Booking appointments
- Pannel Suite HIV clinics currently run on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings, on a booked appointment basis, including appointments for blood tests.
- Once established on treatment, you may be offered some of these appointments as telephone consultations, although you should expect at least an annual face-to-face consultation.
- Your care will be overseen by a named Consultant, although you may not see them at every visit. Our multi-disciplinary team consists of Consultant HIV Specialists, a Specialist Registrar, Health Advisers, Nurses, Health Care Assistants and a Specialist Pharmacist.
- It is important that you attend your appointments or are available at the agreed time and in a suitable place for your telephone consultation.
- If you know in advance that you are unable to make an appointment, please phone us on 0300 303 1948, option 1, then option 2, as soon as possible to reschedule.
- If you reschedule an appointment, please check that you have enough medication.
- Routine monitoring requires you to have regular blood tests (every 6 months as a minimum). These are best arranged 1 to 3 weeks prior to your appointment. Please book a separate blood appointment for this.
- Always ensure that you have your next appointment(s) booked before leaving the department after your visit.
- Please keep us up to date with your address and phone numbers so that we can contact you if we need to.
Your medication
- HIV medication can only be prescribed by a specialist service.
- You will be offered a choice of how to obtain your medication – it can be delivered to your home address or collected from a designated Boots pharmacy.
- In order to work effectively, HIV treatment must be taken at the same time every day. If you miss your tablets, even for a few days, they may stop working.
- It is your responsibility to make sure you do not run out of medication. We will give you enough medication to last until your next appointment, but if you miss an appointment without notifying us then you risk running out.
- If you are having problems with your tablets, please don’t stop them without discussing this with us first.
- If you have been prescribed a new medicine by another healthcare professional or wish to use any over the counter (OTC) preparation or complimentary medicine, always check that it is safe to take with your HIV treatment. If you are not sure then please ask. This can be checked by using the HIV Drug Interaction tool available at https://
www. .hiv-druginteractions.org/ checker
Will we communicate with your GP?
Yes, but not without your consent.
We strongly believe that it is in your best interest for your GP to be aware of your HIV diagnosis and any medication we prescribe for you. This ensures that your GP has full knowledge of your health history, can seek advice appropriately and can avoid prescribing any medicines that may interact with your HIV medicines, prevent them from working effectively or cause you to become unwell.
Your GP will also be able to ensure that you receive vaccinations that are recommended for everyone living with HIV, such as the annual seasonal influenza (flu) vaccine and the pneumococcal vaccine.
Your GP is the best person to see for any general health needs, such as asthma, high blood pressure and diabetes. If we identify any such health conditions in clinic these are best investigated and treated by your GP.
If you have concerns about information going to your GP, please discuss this with us. If you do not give us your consent, we will not write to your GP and it will be your responsibility to make them aware of any medication you are taking.
Please let us know if you wish to receive copies of GP correspondence.
Confidentiality
Your outpatient HIV care will be documented in your Sexual Health Dorset electronic patient record. This is a confidential record which is only accessible by healthcare professionals within Sexual Health Dorset.
The results of blood tests and other clinical investigations such as x-rays, as well as any inpatient care you may receive will be recorded in your electronic patient record held by University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, which undertakes these tests on behalf of our service. This record is accessible by wider healthcare professionals involved in your care, including hospital specialists and your GP. With your consent, we will also upload our GP correspondence letters into this hospital record, as they act as a comprehensive summary of the care you receive from us, which is valuable information for other healthcare professionals involved in your care.
All healthcare professionals are bound by a duty of confidentiality and will only access a clinical record when they are directly involved in that patient’s care.
Where should you go for medical advice?
Generally most illnesses are best addressed and managed by your GP, however, if you think your symptoms are related to HIV or your medications, we are happy to advise.
During working hours (8am-5pm Monday to Friday)
Contact our Health Advisers on 0300 303 1948, option 1, then option 3 – you can leave a message on the answerphone which gets checked regularly throughout the day. If you leave a number, someone will endeavour to call you back within 24 working hours.
Alternatively, you can contact us via email dhc.
Out of hours (evenings and weekends)
Contact your GP out of hours service, attend a walk-in centre of if you are acutely unwell, attend A&E. The Doctor seeing you will be able to obtain advice from the on-call HIV Consultant if your condition is thought to be related to your HIV.
What about children with HIV infection?
We do not look after children within our service. They have their care at the Paediatric Infectious Diseases Unit at Southampton General Hospital (Dr Sanjay Patel, 02380 795360) where there is also a transition service to support their move to adult care.
Social support and advice
Body Positive Dorset – A local organisation that provides advice, practical support, peer-led mentoring, personal development coaching, counselling and information helping those people whose lives are affected by HIV.
Tel: 01202 297386 www.
Useful resources
General HIV information:
- NAM provides information resources such as “HIV treatment update” free of charge to people living with HIV. It sends regular updates via email if requested and has an excellent website, www.
aidsmap.com where the NAM Clinic Portal can be accessed with username Dorset-Patients and password NAM.
- Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) provides information and advice about HIV and sexual health. It has a telephone helpline, 0845 1221 200 and a website, http://
tht.org.uk .
- i-base produces information about advances in HIV treatment for health workers and HIV positive people. Non-technical guides to i-base treatment have been translated into more than 30 languages by HIV organisations in other countries. These are available, along with other resources, from their website http:/
/ .i-base.info/
- HIV drug interactions online checking tool for the co-prescribing of other medications alongside HIV treatment, www.
hiv-druginteractions.org .
Contact us
For Pannel Suite appointments: 0300 303 1948, option 1, option 1
Monday-Friday 8am-5pm
To speak to a Health Adviser: 0300 303 1948, option 1, option 3
Monday-Friday 8am-5pm (answerphone messages will be checked throughout the day)
For enquiries relating to home delivery of your medication, please contact Sciensus
0800 783 0211
Monday-Friday 8am-8pm / Weekends and Bank Holidays 8.30am-4.30pm
Our Consultants
Dr Cordelia Chapman
Dr Olivia Drew
Dr Elbushra Herieka
Dr Kate Schroeder
Our Health Advisers
Laura Cunningham-Smith
Kevin Turner
Sam Worboys
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