After 23 years as the leading HIV charity for women, Positively Women rebrands as Positively UK.

The move will reposition its role as a national organisation and offer a broader remit that includes men and young people living with HIV.

Elisabeth Crafer CEO said: ”Over the past 18 months we have undertaken a major strategic review and process of consultation with service users and stakeholders. The outcome of the review is that the organisation will embark on an exciting new chapter in its history and extend its remit to developing services for all people living with HIV.”

The strategic review identified the funding problems faced by niche HIV charities today and the service gaps left after the closures of organisations like the UKC and Positive Place: identifying a need for more ‘peer lead’ HIV services for men.

Positively UK will continue its award winning work with women and their national network PozFem-UK: Elisabeth Crafer said: “We will retain our core ethos of peer support, and the name Positively Women will be retained for our programme of work with women.

‘Positively Women will sit alongside new work programmes Positively Men and Positively Youth with new services being developed to meet the needs of those groups,” she added.

The organisation has a rich history of puting HIV-positive people at the heart of what they do and remain commited to supporting the involvement of people living with HIV in shaping policy, practice and services.

Other strands to the organistaion will include Positively Health, Positively Policy and  www.positivelyuk.org the new web address.

Positively Women magazine will continue to be published along side a range of other new materials to support and reflect the new direction of the organisation.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) estimated by the end of 2008 there would be 36.900 people living with HIV in London,  27 per cent of those going undiagnosed.