SEXUAL HEALTH
Dr Mary Macintosh, director of the National Chlamydia Screening Programme (NCSP), talks about how far the programme has come in increasing testing levels for Chlamydia and where it is headed in the future.
C
hlamydia is the most common sexu- ally transmitted infection in the UK. To combat this, the NCSP was set up eight years ago as a control and prevention pro- gramme. It was developed to help increase the amount of people being tested, raise awareness of the infection and improve access to treatment. Dr Mary Macintosh, NCSP director, is in charge of managing the team which facilitates the local programme throughout the UK.
Macintosh has seen a huge increase in test- ing levels since the start of the programme, through rolling out services that make screening more accessible. The NCSP also seeks to ‘normalise’ the practice of offer- ing testing to young people by integrating conversations about STIs into primary care practices on a regular basis.
She said of the NCSP: “It’s a public health programme which commenced in 2003, of- fering free testing to young people under the age of 25, and its purpose was to help control Chlamydia infection. Chlamydia is
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different to other sexually transmitted in- fections such as Gonorrhea or HIV in the sense that it’s very widespread in the young population; about two-thirds of all Chla- mydia occurs in the under-25s.
“This is part of a large public health intervention to try to get high testing levels in the community where people are asymptomatic, in order to identify and diagnose Chlamydia in people who don’t have symptoms.”
Testing, testing
She continued: “In 2003, the vast major- ity of Chlamydia testing was done in GUM clinics and I’d hazard a guess that under 5% of the population were having a test at that stage, whereas we’re now running it at levels of about 30-40% of people having testing.”
Macintosh suggests this increase was achieved “by rolling out the services and promoting primary care services in partic- ular to offer screening and testing”.
She explained: “Initially it wasn’t done in general practices or in contraceptive and sexual health services as a routine. Where- as now it’s becoming much more nor- malised within those settings, especially with the contraceptive settings, and we’re having increasing success with general practices for offering such testing.
“We used to have the operating frameworks as vital signs indicators and Chlamydia and the amount of testing that was going on in the community was a performance mea- sure at local PCT level, which helped drive up the higher levels of testing.”
Engaging young people
Since Chlamydia largely affects the under- 25s, publicity had to be targeted to involve young people, to ensure a high uptake of screening.
National campaigns, outreach programmes and raising awareness are all key ways to maintain a focus on the key group at risk.
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