Pharmacists are ideally placed to improve HIV testing in at risk groups and offer lifestyle advice around the condition, Nice experts have said. The comments came at the launch of Nice guidelines on improving HIV testing in black African communities and men who have sex with men on Tuesday. The Nice guidance recommends that patients in these at-risk groups should be offered an HIV test routinely from health professionals, with all patients in areas with a HIV prevalence of more than 2 per 1,000 people also being offered screening when registering with a GP or on admission to hospital. Health professionals, including pharmacists, needed to be more proactive in discussing HIV, said Jane Anderson, consultant at Homerton University Hospital, who wrote the guidance. "Pharmacists are doing a lot of work – and pharmacies are an excellent place [to screen patients] if pharmacists are interested in taking this forward," she added. GP Matt Kearney, who also worked on the Nice advice, said that pharmacies are a "very important focal point in the community", with a higher footfall than GPs and ideally placed to conduct HIV tests – such as those offered on the Isle of Wight. They also encourage health promotion, he added. The Nice guidance came as the Health Protection Agency revealed that new diagnoses of HIV in the UK have almost doubled in the past decade, from 1,950 new cases in 2001 to 3,780 new cases in 2010. More than 80 per cent of new HIV cases come from black African or men who have sex with men populations, with 25 per cent of patients unaware they have the condition.