Greater Manchester working together as a part of Fast Track Cities

George House Trust were proud to co-host the Greater Manchester Fast Track Cities Conference on Thursday 22 May 2025. Over 100 people were in attendance including people with lived experience of HIV and hepatitis, colleagues from the voluntary sector, including representation from HIV, sexual health, homelessness, and drug and alcohol organisations, as well as professionals from local authorities, primary and secondary care.

The conference provided an opportunity to showcase the work and progress that’s been achieved in response to achieving targets around elimination of new transmissions of HIV, HCV, HBV and TB and tackling stigma, together with developing Greater Manchester’s own HIV Action Plan. Andy Burnham, GM Mayor, opened the conference and outlined our shared ambitions and commitment and we heard from speakers including clinicians working with HIV, Hepatitis and TB, third sector partners George House Trust, HepC Trust, BHA for Equality and LGBT Foundation, plus Greater Manchester NHS and Local Authority leads.

Councillor Thomas Robinson, Executive member for Healthy Manchester and Adult Social Care, Manchester City Council drew the event to a close and praised the energy and commitment. ''Our second Greater Manchester Fast Track Cities conference demonstrated once again the energy we have in working together not only on HIV and AIDS, but also on Hep B, Hep C and TB. When we come together as a city and a city region, that’s when we’ve advanced the furthest. Opt-out testing across our hospitals, mandatory awareness training are impacting in ways we once never thought possible.

But its these final yards now, in the goal of ending new diagnosis’s by 2030 where we are going to be pushed the hardest – but I know that we will do it together, and I promise as political lead on the Board to continue to play my part in supporting the team each and every step of the way as we approach 2030. Together we can achieve it".

Read our 'ght-data-factpack-june11.pdf' [pdf] to find out more.