Ormond Street are likely to have known the members of the hospital's Family Clinic for years. The transition process to an environment mostly involved with sexually-transmitted

diseases needs sensitive handling. Teenagers won't transfer to Mortimer Market or any other centre until they are at least 16 and have the skills to cope with an 'adult' service.
The new national sexual health strategy has set targets to increase HIV testing among teenagers. But they will need encouragement.
"Teenagers won't test until they're sick," says Clint Walters of Health Initiatives for Youth UK (HIFY). That's how he found out he was HIV positive when he was 17.
The main Mortimer Market Centre does offer same day HIV testing on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But appointments have to be booked. "That's a disincentive," says Clint. "HIV testing needs to be on a walk-in basis, without the rigmarole of booking and long waits for results." This is something the TEAM clinic can't yet offer.

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Clint argues strongly for three basic principles to be heeded if you want to succeed with teenagers. "First, peer counselling: support young people to support each other. Second, even though walking into a GUM clinic by yourself is daunting, help them to become responsible for their own care. Third, health is not the only issue. Like other teenagers, they are also

dealing with employment, housing, money and relationships, too."
The number of under 20s known about with HIV/Aids may still be relatively small. Only 1,567 people between 10 and 19 have ever tested HIV positive in

Dr Katia Prime: friendly face at TEAM Clinic

the UK - one in 50 cases.
But there are huge increases in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among the young. During 2000, 41 per cent of diagnosed cases of gonorrhoea and 33 per cent of chlamydia infections in

females were under 20. No one yet knows if this will translate into a new wave of HIV infection among teenagers.
Hopefully not. But if it does, facilities like the TEAM clinic will be sorely needed.