In recent weeks, Positive Life has been rocked by the news that there will be no Department of Health Core Funding for the 2025 – 26 financial year. You may already have seen my opinions on this shared across the socials.
Just in case you don’t know – this is the money that we use to keep the lights on, heat and maintain the building, the bits that aren’t ‘sexy’ to other funders.
Positive Life’s application was unsuccessful and leaves our service users and the organisation facing a very uncertain future.
We recognise the budget challenges facing the Department of Health. The voluntary sector is treated as something that is separate and outside public health service. But the reality for us is that 80% of new service users last year came to us through referrals from GPs, hospital consultants and sexual health clinics. We are seen by clinicians as a direct support service for the NHS. Unfortunately, we are not funded as such.
Worse still, support for the voluntary and community sector has been decreasing from £5.2m in 2019 to £1.8m currently. This equates to a very measly 0.02% of an ever-increasing health budget that currently stands at a whopping £8.79billion.
The Department have said that the core grant does not have a significant impact on services or service users – this is naïve and only goes to highlight further the fundamental lack of government understanding of the value of our work and how it is funded.
As Northern Ireland’s only dedicated HIV charity, the decision on core grant funding puts the future of our work in doubt, it shows no respect for our work, and it feels like a brutal snub for our service users.
We are already down to a tiny team doing our best to reach out across Northern Ireland.
The biggest blow is that this simply does not make financial sense. The work we do directly supports the NHS, it takes the pressure off other frontline health services and in doing so, actually saves the Department of Health money.
As well as delivering therapy, support and a peer community for people living with HIV, Positive Life provides a safe place, free of stigma, ignorance and judgment. The mental health benefits of this are immeasurable: within the last week, two recently diagnosed service users have told me directly that if Positive Life wasn’t here, they wouldn’t be either.
Positive Life also delivers crucial public health education and increases access to testing aimed at driving new HIV diagnoses down.
While we know that health budgets are under pressure, we also know that every new HIV diagnosis comes at a price. The cost to the health service of the medicines for just one additional person diagnosed with HIV, would core fund almost four years of our prevention, awareness and support work.
The fallout is that this funding decision will limit what we can do, and worryingly it also threatens the public health goal of eliminating new HIV diagnoses by 2030 – this just doesn’t make sense.
#SOS – Save our Services
Through our lobbying work, we also give a voice to people living with HIV – probably one of the most marginalised groups of individuals in Northern Ireland. Since most of our service users choose to keep their status very private, if our services disappear, they will not only be invisible, they may also be left without a voice.
So we need to be bold – the voluntary sector thrives on a challenge and we’re good at problem solving. But we need your help.
Please contact your local MLA or MP about this. Share with them the importance of our work and if you’ve accessed any voluntary or community services, not just ours, do share your experience. Press them to invest and allocate appropriately for the longer-term benefits. £1.8 million is a drop in the ocean when compared with the enormous impact and contribution made by voluntary and community organisations in supporting the health service.
The Minister says publicly that the community and voluntary sector are doing great work to support front line health services. You’d think that properly funding us so we can open our doors would therefore be a priority.
#ShowMeTheMoney
And of course, as a charity leader, I’ll never miss an opportunity to ask for a donation.
As a Team we’re doing everything we can to reduce costs and to secure additional income, but it’s a really tough environment and we don’t fit easily into funders’ criteria for support.
We asked the Department of Health for £76,425. This represented a significant contribution to overheads – rent, heat, light etc – and a bit towards the part of staff salaries not covered through programme income.
Folks, this gap leaves us in a very precarious position with serious concerns about how Positive Life moves forward.
So please, if you can help, it would be appreciated.
Become a regular donor – donating £10 a month might not seem like much but if we have 100 people doing that we’ve got £12,000!
You could also make a one off donation – of any amount or for something more tangible – every little will help!
- Pay the electric bill for a year
- Pay a month’s rent
Simply use and share this link: Make a donation to Positive Life.
Thank you.
Jacquie
#PowerToThePeople