Mapping patient pathways and estimating resource use for point of care versus standard testing and treatment of chlamydia and gonorrhoea in genitourinary medicine clinics in the UK.

Objectives: We aimed to explore patient pathways using a chlamydia/gonorrhoea point-of-care (POC) nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT), and estimate and compare the costs of the proposed POC pathways with the current pathways using standard laboratory-based NAAT testing.

Design/participants: Workshops were conducted with healthcare professionals at four sexual health clinics representing diverse models of care in the UK. They mapped out current pathways that used chlamydia/gonorrhoea tests, and constructed new pathways using a POC NAAT.

'Do it yourself' sexual health care: the user experience.

Objectives: To describe client experience of self-management within a busy walk-in, sexual health service. Self-management in this context is self-registration and take-home pregnancy tests, chlamydia (Chlamydia trachomatis) and gonorrhoea (Neisseria gonorrhoeae) tests, or condoms dispensed from a free vending machine.

Methods: Twenty-four in-depth, semi-structured interviews with users; 19 structured written reports from mystery shoppers paid to visit the service and report their experience; demographic details of those using the self-management option from the clinic database and 40 h of recorded observation in the clinic waiting room.

Look who's taking notes in your clinic: mystery shoppers as evaluators in sexual health services.

Objectives: To test the feasibility of professional patients as a tool for sexual health service evaluation. Professional patients are paid to use services specifically for audit or evaluation purposes without disclosing their identity as evaluators.

Methods: Professional patients visited five large sexual health departments used by 3000 clients per week in two inner London Boroughs with very high rates of sexual ill health.

Involving service users in sexual health service development.

Objectives: The study objectives were to document users' experience of family planning and genitourinary medicine clinics and young people's services working within the time constraints of rapid service development and maximising the utility of this data for service improvement.

Methods: A total of 93 users of family planning and genitourinary medicine services participated in one of 13 facilitated discussion groups. Some 61% of the sample were women, 64% were aged over 25 years and 47% were Black Caribbean or Black African.