Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if the Government will bring forward proposals to remove the requirement that people infected with hepatitis C prior to September 1991 must prove that they have chronic hepatitis C for longer than six months in order to register with the Skipton 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.