SEQUENCE Digital

SEQUENCE Digital: Sexual health equity through evidence-based online clinical care (Improving sexual health for all, in a digital NHS)

(2020-2025)

Multiple factors challenge the control of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), including rises in key STIs, increasing antimicrobial resistance, and large-scale disinvestment in sexual health services.

Online sexual healthcare offers considerable potential for health gains and aligns with NHS digital- and self-managed strategies, but evidence for effectiveness is lacking, particularly related to clinical outcomes, impact on health inequalities, patient experience, and economic parameters.

SEQUENCE digital addresses these challenges to provide new insights and outputs to advance the development, uptake and delivery of online clinical care within a digital NHS.

We will achieve this by optimising a previously developed innovative eSexual Health Clinic (eSHC), which contained a unique-to-the-NHS online automated clinical consultation and electronic prescribing algorithm for comprehensive management of people with chlamydia and their partners. Exploratory studies have demonstrated that this Online Chlamydia Care Pathway (OCP) was safe and delivery feasible.

SEQUENCE digital builds on previous work to improve health outcomes for people with STIs and their partners, by developing and evaluating inclusive, comprehensive, evidence-based clinical care pathways fit for a digital NHS.

Project team

Prof Claudia Estcourt (Principal Investigator, Glasgow Caledonian University and Central and North West London NHS Trust), Dr Jo Gibbs, Dr John Saunders, Prof Pam Sonnenberg, Dr Andrew Copas, Prof Ann Blandford (University College London), Prof Tracy Roberts (University of Birmingham), Prof Paul Flowers (University of Strathclyde), Dr Vanessa Apea (Barts Health NHS Trust), Dr Andrew Winter (NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde), Dr Caroline Ward (University of York), Mr Jonathan O’Sullivan (Islington Council), Mr Merle Symonds (Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust), Prof Jonathan Ross (University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust), Dr Jennifer MacDonald, Ms Julie McLeod (Glasgow Caledonian University), Dr Fiona Mapp, Dr Melvina Woode Owusu, Dr Karen Lloyd, Ms Roos van Greevenbroek, Ms Sonja Bloch (University College London)

Contact: claudia.estcourt@gcu.ac.uk
Website: https://www.sequencedigital.org.uk/

This project is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Programme Grants for Applied Research (NIHR200856) (£2.51 million)