P40 Initial outcomes of integrated community-based hepatitis C treatment for people who inject drugs: findings from the Queensland injectors’ health network

Acceptability of, and barriers and facilitators to, a pilot physical health service for people who inject drugs: A qualitative study with service users and providers

“…Healthcare programmes may be tailored specifically to the needs of service users in order to overcome challenges with provision and use. This may include integrating programmes within existing services such as incorporating Hepatitis C care within community-based needle and syringe programmes and drug and alcohol (rather than traditional health) services (Morris et al, 2017;Muncan et al, 2021), or the development of new targeted initiatives such as peer outreach point-ofcare testing for Hepatitis C (Broad et al, 2020). Healthcare programmes tailored specifically to PWIDs have demonstrated promise for increasing usage and improving health outcomes, but require systemic changes to policy and healthcare delivery (Harris & Rhodes, 2013).…”

“…Such PWID-specific programmes may facilitate access to healthcare by reducing stigma and discrimination, and increasing service users' involvement in their care (Ti & Kerr, 2013). However, to effectively engage and retain PWID, services must account for logistical factors, promote positive social interactions between service users and providers, include support strategies to retain users, and account for service users overall treatment and recovery processes (Morris et al, 2017;Rich et al, 2016). Despite aforementioned systematic reviews demonstrating promise for integrated physical health services within PWID-specific services (Oru et al, 2019;Socías et al, 2019), the lack of high quality evidence highlighted the need for robustly designed community-level programmes which seek to understand and address key barriers to PWID service provision and usage (Fernandes et al, 2017).…”