Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester, Withington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many needle and syringe distribution points there are in England.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Local authorities are responsible for assessing local needs and commissioning drug prevention, treatment and harm reduction services to meet these needs. This includes making sure people in this high-risk population are screened for hepatitis C virus and identified for treatment when they access these services.
Public Health England (PHE) provides a range of drug and alcohol treatment data to local authorities which monitors national and local activity in drug treatment settings and can inform local commissioning of services. This includes the number of people in drug treatment who have been tested for hepatitis C.
NHS England and NHS Improvement have an Elimination Programme Partnership with the Pharmaceutical Industry and work closely with Gilead Sciences, who have hepatitis C Testing projects with the six largest groups of National Health Service and independent sector treatment providers in England covering approximately 95% of the available addiction services. Their plan is that ‘everybody tests, and everybody is tested’; all staff can carry out tests and they target 100% of their population. Those in contact with drug treatment services in secure and detained settings are engaged through reception in a programme of ‘opt out’ blood borne virus testing covering hepatitis B, hepatitis C and human immunodeficiency virus. Those already within the prison are targeted through a rolling programme of ‘whole population’ testing.
Local authorities are also responsible for commissioning needle and syringe programmes in their areas. The number of needle and syringe programmes in England is not recorded centrally.
Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester, Withington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of Government drugs policy in reducing the rate of new hepatitis C infections.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Local authorities are responsible for assessing local needs and commissioning drug prevention, treatment and harm reduction services to meet these needs. This includes making sure people in this high-risk population are screened for hepatitis C virus and identified for treatment when they access these services.
Public Health England (PHE) provides a range of drug and alcohol treatment data to local authorities which monitors national and local activity in drug treatment settings and can inform local commissioning of services. This includes the number of people in drug treatment who have been tested for hepatitis C.
NHS England and NHS Improvement have an Elimination Programme Partnership with the Pharmaceutical Industry and work closely with Gilead Sciences, who have hepatitis C Testing projects with the six largest groups of National Health Service and independent sector treatment providers in England covering approximately 95% of the available addiction services. Their plan is that ‘everybody tests, and everybody is tested’; all staff can carry out tests and they target 100% of their population. Those in contact with drug treatment services in secure and detained settings are engaged through reception in a programme of ‘opt out’ blood borne virus testing covering hepatitis B, hepatitis C and human immunodeficiency virus. Those already within the prison are targeted through a rolling programme of ‘whole population’ testing.
Local authorities are also responsible for commissioning needle and syringe programmes in their areas. The number of needle and syringe programmes in England is not recorded centrally.
Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester, Withington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people were treated for hepatitis C in England in the financial year 2018-19.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Public Health England publishes information on the numbers of individual’s accessing hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment in their annual hepatitis C reports.
Latest available data for 2017/18 financial year show that 11,557 people were reported to have accessed HCV treatment in England. This can be viewed at the following link:
Data for the 2018/19 financial year for England will be published in 2020.
Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester, Withington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure people who are in contact with drug treatment services are tested for hepatitis C.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester, Withington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure people who are in contact with drug treatment services are tested for hepatitis C.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester, Withington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people were treated for hepatitis C in England in the financial year 2018-19.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.