STIF Stuff

Below you will find useful links, articles and resources

Three short films to enhance partner notification were launched at the BASHH 2025 conference. The films are endorsed by BASHH and available on the BASHH website along with a toolkit and clinic poster to assist implementation of the films into routine practice.

The films were created using public and patient involvement methodologies, including extensive and rigorous co-production, within the LUSTRUM2 project, which was led by Prof Claudia Estcourt (Glasgow Caledonian University, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust) and Dr Jennifer MacDonald (Glasgow Caledonian University) and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR205675).

Click here to view the new resources.

Female Genital Mutilation

Female Genital Mutilation: A Change Has Begun is a short and intimate, survivor-led account of life with FGM which speaks of the positive shift in perspective within practicing communities in the UK. Produced by Spirited Pictures, this 10 minute documentary, commissioned by Girl Effect, reveals brand new Home Office data - embargoed up until the point of the film's release - on the prevalence of Female Genital Mutilation in England and Wales today.

A Change Has Begun was released at Girl Summit 2014 hosted by by David Cameron.

Content Warning: This film contains graphic description of female genital mutilation.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) - A change has begun

STASHH Sexy Health Podcast

Health inequalities in the LGBTQIA+ community - Podcast

Listen to Dr Rohan Mehra (RCP education fellow/Infectious diseases and microbiology SPR) and Professor Catherine Meads as they discuss the vast Health inequalities facing LGBTQIA+ communities. They outline practical steps that you as a clinician can take to ensure you do not contribute to or worsen health inequalities in your local environment as well as suggestions at national level to help tackle this issue.

Professor Catherine Meads is a senior systematic reviewer at Anglia Ruskin university and has published numerous systematic reviews and has been conducting research into lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) health since 1992 and has published several ground-breaking papers in this area.

Link to podcast

Trans-Inclusive Sexual Health Workbook

We are excited to announce to launch of "Trans-Inclusive Sexual Health: A Service-User Informed Workbook", produced in collaboration between NIHR, BASHH, and UCL.

Trans individuals face multiple barriers when accessing integrated sexual health services. This workbook brings together recommendations from the Sexual Health Service Standards for Trans, Including Non-binary People with insights from service users to illustrate key steps towards providing inclusive care.

The aim of this workbook is to increase the confidence of providers of sexual health services in providing inclusive services that meet the needs of trans and gender-diverse service users.

View the workbook here

ARTICLES and VIDEOS on false positives, positives and negative predictive values

Chemsex Resources

Chemsex: Hidden Pleasures, Hidden Harms (File on 4)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002ln42

File on Four explores the risks some gay men are taking by habitually mixing their sex lives with drug use. The practice, known as Chemsex has been on the gay scene for more than a decade. It involves taking illegal and addictive substances like Crystal Meth and GHB. While the programme hears from some who say they can manage their use and it heightens their sexual pleasure, others are falling into destructive patterns of addiction, decline and even death. Reporter Mobeen Azhar tries to assess the scale of the problem and hears from medical professionals who fear it could be a crisis that’s going under the radar.

Updated guidance for the detection of gonorrhoea

This is updated guidance for the detection of gonorrhoea in England, which was first published by Public Health England (PHE) in 2014.

The guidance aims to inform the commissioning and clinical delivery of gonorrhoea testing in England by recommending best practice. It highlights that in almost all settings the use of a supplementary NAAT is required to confirm the result, and the need to ensure effective and robust care pathways and management.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-for-the-detection-of-gonorrhoea-in-england

HIV testing in GP practice setting

HIV Unmuted podcasts

Remembering the early years of the HIV-Aids epidemic

Remembering the early years of the HIV-Aids epidemic, as told through the stories of people who experienced it first hand, from patients to medical staff.

'A Big Disease with a Little Name' looks back to the recent pas, to a similar time, and the dawn of the Aids crisis, which to date has affected 75 million people around the world, of which some 32 million people have died.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jx5k

Criminally Queer: The Bolton 7

LGBTQ+ Health and care during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

AIDS: The Unheard Tapes (BBC Two)

'AIDS: The Unheard Tapes' combines the lip-synced historical testimonies of those most affected with modern interviews from British activists, scientists, doctors and nurses who lived, worked and campaigned throughout the crisis.

Go even deeper with The Open University. Here, we explore real stories of how people manage sex and love alongside HIV, and hear from the people who still live with HIV today. Their experiences provide a stark and up-to-date insight into this treatable but still stigmatised condition.

For more information about the programme, you can go to the BBC programme page.

BBC Two - Aids: The Unheard Tapes

Cervical Screening FGM Resource

Congenital Syphilis

Dr Phil Hammond talks to Sexual Health expert Peter Greenhouse

Secrets of the microbiome: The vagina - Podcast

Ray Schinazi talks about his passion for medicine

This is how we do it around the World: A Sex Special

Patient information booklets: Pelvic, Obstetric and Gynaecological Physiotherapy

Everything you ever wanted to know about Vaginas

STI Podcast

http://feeds.bmj.com/sti/podcasts

STI Podcast by BMJ talk medicine

STI podcast

Elizabeth Pisani videos

Elizabeth Pisani: Sex, drugs and HIV -- let's get rational

Elizabeth Pisani - The Wisdom of Whores

Extra Life: A short History of Living Longer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000w6s7/episodes/player

Documentary series about the effect of medicine on life expectancy. How the development and delivery of the smallpox vaccine eradicated the disease. 4 episodes covering Vaccines, Medical Drugs, Data and Behaviour.

Best-selling science writer Steven Johnson and historian David Olusoga embark on an investigative journey through 300 years of scientific breakthroughs and go behind the scenes of modern medicine to meet the unsung heroes tackling Covid-19 and other public health threats today. Together, they expose the normally hidden world of public health and reveal how collective efforts across the globe can lead to extraordinary outcomes.

Each episode explores one aspect of public health that has played a central role in extending life expectancy, from the history of vaccination, to how we have developed safe and effective medicines, the use of data gathering and analysis in preventing epidemics, and how our own behaviour can affect the progress of disease.

Featuring leading public health authorities and scientists on the front lines of the current pandemic, each documentary reveals how the pioneering approaches and triumphs of the past can provide a blueprint for our future in the battle to live longer.

What happened to mpox? “Inside Health” (BBC Radio 4)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001p1tn

One year after the peak of UK infections, can we determine what actions brought mpox cases down? A year ago, mpox – the virus formally known as monkeypox – was spreading in the UK. These infections largely impacted the gay, bisexual and men who have sex with men community, with news cases peaking at 350 per week. One of these individuals was Martin Joseph, who tells James Gallagher how a lack of accessible information and the stigma he observed during his illness inspired him to create a mpox-based podcast so others wouldn’t feel so alone. Thankfully, 2023 so far has told a different story for mpox. Infections in the UK have remained relatively low, and in May, the World Health Organisation declared the mpox global health emergency over. But what helped bring the UK outbreak under control? James is joined by Jake Dunning, infectious diseases doctor and researcher at the University of Oxford, and Claire Dewsnap, sexual health doctor and president of the British Association of Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH), to discuss potential factors, takeaways and whether we are really ‘done’ with mpox.

Story of two women, two trials and the criminal justice system.

In the UK, more than one in four adult women are thought to have been sexually assaulted or raped in their lifetime. But what is going wrong and where? This is the story of two women, of their two trials, and of a criminal justice system that seems completely broken.

https://www.tortoisemedia.com/audio/taking-the-stand-graces-story/

https://www.tortoisemedia.com/audio/taking-the-stand-emmas-story/