The report from Changing Tomorrow, like the conference itself, is by people living with HIV and AIDS. Each workshop was allocated a rapporteur from one of the partner organisations and the notes were then sent to the conference organiser, who produced a draft of the workshop write-up, with accompanying evaluation data. This was then circulated to the chairs, speakers and facilitators who were asked to think of the key messages and recommendations that arose as a result of the session. The exceptions were the meetings held by and for Scottish, Welsh and African participants, which were circulated to those attending rather than the facilitators or chairs.
Apart from those people living with HIV who were involved as rapporteurs, chairs, speakers and facilitators, the other main contributors are the participants themselves. The conference partners would like to thank all those who took the time to fill in the pre-conference diary, conference evaluation form and post-conference diary, which has made this report such an interesting and informative guide to the needs and experiences of people living with HIV and AIDS in the UK today.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the staff and volunteers who worked so hard to plan and deliver Changing Tomorrow. In particular, the partner organisations pay tribute to the hard work and dedication of Babs Evans who was employed by NAT with funding from the Big Lottery Fund to be our conference organiser, and who produced this report and associated research on behalf of the partners.
We are also grateful to members of the Conference Steering Group: African HIV Policy Network, Birchgrove Group, HIV Scotland, Positive Tongue, NAZ Project, PACT (Providers of NHS AIDS Care and Treatment), i-Base, Positive Futures Partnership, NHS London Specialised Commissioning Group, HIV Support Centre Belfast, Positive-Negative dot org, THT and a number of individual people living with HIV.
Funding for Changing Tomorrow came from a variety of sources including: Department of Health, Department for Education and Skills, London HIV Commissioning Consortium (Treatment Information Providers Initiative), Abbott Pharmaceuticals, Bristol Myers-Squibb, Gilead Sciences, Glaxo-SmithKline, Roche Pharmaceuticals, Boehringer-Ingelheim.
Additionally, the Big Lottery Fund supported the organisation of the conference and the provision of regional seminars before the event. The employment related aspects of the conference were supported by the Positive Futures Partnership with funding through the European Union Social Fund Equal Programme.