Your GP

More and more people are living long, healthy lives with HIV. It’s important to have access to doctors with experience of treating the whole range of day-to-day health problems. General practitioners (GPs) have a lot of experience treating common conditions and long-term conditions such as diabetes, asthma and depression.

GPs are also able to prescribe drugs or give vaccines that are not available from your HIV clinic, such as antidepressants, blood pressure and cholesterol drugs, flu vaccines, and so on.

GP and other surgery staff can work with you to lead a healthy lifestyle, offering advice and help on eating well, maintaining a healthy weight, doing exercise or giving up smoking, for example. And GPs are often the person who will need to refer you to specialist services if you need them for a health condition.

So it’s important to be registered with a GP as well as an HIV clinic. Although you are not obliged to tell your GP that you have HIV, there are good medical reasons to do so. When treating you and giving you prescriptions, your doctor needs to know about other health issues you have, and all other medicines you are taking.

Some drugs your GP may prescribe (for example, oral contraceptives and antihistamines) can interact with HIV medicines.

Because of rules of confidentiality, the HIV clinic needs your permission before it can discuss your health with your GP. But you are likely to get better care if they keep your GP informed about your test results, tell your GP about any drug interactions to be aware of or ask your GP to prescribe something you need.

GPs will not get involved in HIV treatment decisions, which are left to the HIV clinic.

Just like other healthcare workers, GPs and their staff are obliged to maintain strict standards of confidentiality.