Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many applications to register with the Skipton Fund have been refused on the grounds that applicants have not been infected with chronic hepatitis C for longer that six months; and how many such decisions have been overturned on appeal since the inception of that Fund.

The Fund has rejected 193 applications on the grounds that the claimant cleared the virus naturally within six months of infection, four of which have been overturned on appeal. There are no plans to change the eligibility criteria for Skipton Fund stage 1 payments.