Engaging with civil society to improve access to LTBI screening for new migrants in England: a qualitative study

Setting: The LTBI programme offers testing and treatment to new entrant migrants from high incidence countries in England. However, the rates of LTBI testing, treatment acceptance and completion are suboptimal and appropriate access must be improved.

Objective: To gain insights from the community, community-based organisations (CBOs), and public sector stakeholders on interventions that facilitate collaboration to improve health care outreach and delivery.

Design: Three stakeholder meetings and five focus group discussions were held using thematic analysis to identify themes arising from the participants’ perspectives.

Results: Four overarching themes emerged from the discussions. These were capacity, collaboration, culture and trust. These highlighted the complementary skills sets different sectors bring to collaboration, as well as the barriers that need surmounting. Stigma could be reduced by making LTBI testing routine, and community members could act as champions for health promotion raising awareness on LTBI testing, and providing a bridge between communities and primary care services.

Conclusion: Public service providers, community members and CBOs have a willingness to collaborate to support primary care delivery of testing for LTBI and other communicable and non-communicable diseases. Policy and commissioning support are needed to facilitate such workings.