What does the HIV Action Plan mean for people living with HIV?

Reports and articles about HIV policy often start with a familiar narrative – about progress in treatment and prevention, advances in life expectancy, and the 2030 goals to end new HIV transmissions. But what does this mean for people living with HIV?

2030 will come and go, we will meet or miss those targets, and there will continue to be thousands of people in the UK and millions of people globally living with HIV. People who need access to care and treatment, but also to live free from stigma and discrimination, with their rights upheld and their quality of life prioritised as highly as the clinical markers that increasingly dominate the HIV discourse.

Gender in the HIV response

Around ten years ago, I interviewed women living with HIV as part of my PhD research, and many of them shared a similar view – that they felt left behind by an HIV response that was dominated by prevention advances and paid little attention to their experiences and priorities as women. This approach was evident in the previous HIV Action Plan, set by the Government to act as a framework for HIV policy and services in England.

As had always been in the case in UK HIV policy, the Plan did not address gender issues or consider women specifically, leaving women’s needs and experiences sidelined and under-recognised.

Recently, the Government published the 2025-2030 HIV Action Plan for England. For the first time ever, the Action Plan specifically references gender and outlines actions for women – something I’ve personally been working on for many years with Sophia Forum.

This is a huge, and long overdue, step forward for the UK’s HIV response, which will continue to fail women until it is truly gender transformative.

Prioritising quality of life

The past Action Plan also heavily prioritised HIV prevention, especially PrEP, and expansion of access to HIV testing, including through opt-out testing in Emergency Departments. These are necessary and important aspects of any HIV response – it is imperative that we reach more people with early diagnosis and prevention tools. But they also speak to an HIV response that centres clinical interventions over community and quality of life.

We will not end the HIV epidemic simply by getting pills into bodies. It is also critical to build and sustain support and community for people living with HIV, recognise and meet wider health and wellbeing needs, and ensure good quality of life for everyone.

As a feminist researcher and advocate, working in HIV policy in the UK and globally, I have seen over and over again the transformation in individuals that comes from having the right support in place, community and a sense of belonging. I have also seen how the UK’s HIV voluntary and community sector has struggled, adapted and shrunk over time, as funds and attention are diverted elsewhere, and biomedical advances overshadow the ongoing critical need for care and support.

Same challenges, but still fighting

Going through old photos recently, I came across a screengrab of me in 2016, in an interview on a TV news programme, with the strapline ‘Fears of HIV Funding Crisis’. On the show, I spoke about how vital HIV support services are for people living with HIV, how these need to be tailored to different needs and experiences, and how the voluntary and community sector that provides these vital services was struggling due to austerity, citing research showing that 40% of organisations in the past year had faced an overall loss of income and had to cut staff roles, and that this was likely to get worse in the coming year.

Nine years later, I joined the NAT team, and picked up the mantle of our work as the secretariat for HIV Outcomes UK, which brings together diverse experts and stakeholders to lead research, policy and advocacy on quality of life for people living with HIV. Earlier this year, HIV Outcomes UK published research on the voluntary and community sector that shared many of the headlines I spoke about back in 2016, with loss of funding, cuts to services and staff losses. As a sector, we know how to navigate this fight, and we know that the road ahead is likely to get more challenging.

HIV policy – opportunities and work to do

Maybe it seems disheartening, to see the same issues dominating over my years in the HIV sector. But there is good reason to be hopeful. The new HIV Action Plan for England, published on World AIDS Day 2025, has a much greater focus on quality of life, and a strong commitment to ensure the third sector is commissioned and funded to provide the vital support services everyone living with HIV should have access to.

It also includes a priority area focused on addressing stigma and improving quality of life, including commitments to commission anti-stigma programmes in trusts participating in ED opt-out testing, ensure health and social care staff receive training on HIV awareness, and ensure the needs of women living with HIV are considered and addressed in future work.

There is important work to do as we move into 2026, including priorities I am excited to work with HIV Outcomes on such as ensuring the transfer of commissioning of HIV services to ICBs is successful, and that the three shifts outlined in the NHS 10 Year Plan – from analogue to digital, from hospital to community and from sickness to prevention, are navigated in ways that have positive outcomes for people living with HIV. In the coming year, we will lead research and publish reports and briefings that take these priorities forward. 2026 will also see refreshed HIV Action Plans in England and Wales, that we will be working to influence to ensure quality of life is at the centre.

There is more to do to ensure that everyone, including people in prisons, trans people and people experiencing homelessness, are properly centred and supported by HIV policy. And there are risks that a good plan on paper will fall down on implementation. But there are also reasons to be hopeful – and we cannot afford the luxury of pessimism as we fight for quality of life to be prioritised to 2030 and beyond.