The NHS will automatically test patients for HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C unless they opt out at almost 90 A&Es in England, the BBC can reveal. The government is rolling out a £27m expansion of the scheme to 30 new hospitals, saying it could lead to an extra 1,900 people receiving earlier care for HIV each year. NHS England data showed a 40% rise in the detection of blood-borne infections after the last Conservative government began piloting the scheme in November 2023. NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard said the “expansion of this revolutionary opt-out testing” will lead to the early detection of “thousands more cases of HIV and Hepatitis B and C”. The announcement means the scheme will be available in nearly all areas of England. It is designed to catch cases of blood-borne viruses in people who would not usually get tested at a sexual health clinic. NHS England data shows opt-out testing has caught 7,300 cases of newly-diagnosed blood-borne viruses, including over 1,000 cases of HIV, 4,600 of Hepatitis B and 1,600 of Hepatitis C.
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