Many years ago, a seed was sown by Louise Hansford, an inspirational member of staff. This seed was germinated by her life experiences, drive, passion and tenacity to make things happen for the benefit of service users’ health. From this seed, the Hampshire Peer 2 Peer Project came to life on 21^st July 2012. Ever since, the project has (and continues) to make a difference to the lives of numerous individuals, families and communities.

Hep C Hants P2P is an initiative that is part of Inclusion Recovery Hampshire, where peers support those diagnosed with hepatitis C or having treatment for hepatitis C and carry out testing and educational talks across Hampshire.

On Thursday 21st July 2022, we travelled to Winchester to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of Hep C Hants P2P, marking its journey and evolution with staff, stakeholders, service users and volunteers.

After the delivery of a motivational, inspiring and emotional presentation, a member of the Cepheid team stepped up to announce that Cepheid, who have been supporting Hep C Hants P2P through Hep C U Later, had nominated Inclusion Recovery Hampshire for an award… and had won!

The global ‘Make it Happen’ award recognises outstanding projects making a huge patient impact and consists of only 3 nominees a year.

The following key considerations were taken into account by the judges:

• Emphasis on patient impact and improved clinical care as a result
• Evidence of enhancing the patient pathway
• Ideally innovative thinking and service design
• Bold decision-making and collaboration with stakeholders
• Overcoming hurdles and barriers within the organisation to implement testing

We could not be more proud of our colleagues within the Inclusion Recovery Hampshire and Hep C Hants P2P team and a huge congratulations to all those involved.