Emotional and wellbeing support
The HIV team at the clinic offer telephone and face to face support to patients living with HIV attending the service. Our colleagues at Positive East offer counselling and psychological support and we have an in-house Psychologist.
If you need support with something please discuss at your clinic appointment or contact the nursing team on one of the numbers above.
We offer HIV related support and reassurance, coping strategies, sexual health advice and safeguarding and can also refer you to our HIV Psychology Service if it is felt appropriate.
We do not deal with financial or benefits advice, housing or immigration issues but we can signpost you to specialist services who are better placed to help you with these issues.
Urgent Mental Health Support
If you need urgent mental health support, you can call 116 123 to talk to Samaritans for free, at any time.
If you live in a North East London borough you can contact the local crisis service by calling 111 and selecting Option 2 or by calling Mental Health Direct on 0800 995 1000.
Peer Support
Positive East Peer Support Workers are in our clinic every Wednesday. HIV Peer support workers are professionals living with HIV, who are happy to share their own journey of living with HIV to aid in the recovery of others. They provide a ‘lived experience’ approach to managing HIV on a day to day basis, focusing on the emotional and practical issues that may come up after diagnosis, and different from a medical perspective of managing HIV.
Our Peer support team provide a ‘person centered and solution focused approach’ to the issues that living with HIV presents. They offer help and advice, brief solution focused informal counselling, and signposting to external agencies. They are not experts in housing, immigration or benefits advice but they can signpost to those who are.
