Social Work Department of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh: HIV/AIDS

Edinburgh-specific social work related AIDS papers 1985-1993; non-Edinburgh-specific social work related AIDS papers 1984-1997

HIV was first introduced into Edinburgh in 1983 and spread rapidly as a result of injection drug users who habitually shared equipment. By 1989 over 1000 HIV infected users had been identified in Edinburgh out of a total of 1700 in Scotland, representing three to four times the worst infection rate measured in England. The epidemic was detected within two years and , as a result, an opportunity arose to develop HIV services prior to the development of HIV-related ill-health/AIDS. A range of local National Health Service, municipal and voluntary institutions and organisations rapidly became involved. These papers were collected by a practising social worker based at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.

Chronological within record class

Public access to these records is governed by the UK Data Protection Act 1998, the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and the latest version of the Scottish Government Records Management: NHS Code of Practice (Scotland). Whilst some records may be accessed freely by researchers, the aforementioned legislation and guidelines mean that records with sensitive information on named individuals may be closed to the public for a set time.

Where records are about named deceased adults, they will be open 75 years after the latest date in the record, on the next 01 January. Records about individuals below 18 years (living or deceased) or adults not proven to be deceased will be open 100 years after the latest date in the record, on the next 01 January. Further information on legislation and guidelines covering medical records can be found on the LHSA webpage (http://www.lhsa.lib.ed.ac.uk/).

LHSA can support the use of records closed to public access for legitimate clinical, historical and genealogical research purposes. Please contact the LHSA Archivist for more details regarding procedures on how you can apply for permission to view closed records. Telephone us on: 0131 650 3392 or email us at lhsa@ed.ac.uk

Geraldine Brown, Social Work Department, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, September 1999

Compiled by Mike Barfoot and Jenny McDermott using existing handlists

Manual item-level descriptive list available

No further accessions are expected