Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average cost of treating a patient with (a) hepatitis C, (b) cirrhosis and (c) hepatitis C and cirrhosis has been in the last 12 months for which figures are available.

The information is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available is shown in the table below and is from reference costs, which are the average unit cost to National Health Service trusts and foundation trusts of providing defined services in a given financial year. Reference costs are published annually, with most recently available data being for 2014-15.

Reference costs for acute care are collected by healthcare resource group (HRG), which are standard groupings of clinically similar treatments that consume similar levels of healthcare resource. HRGs are organised by chapters and sub-chapters, representing different body systems, and HRG sub-chapters GC and PG describe hepatobiliary and pancreatic system disorders for adults and children respectively. The average costs in the following table will therefore include the costs to NHS hospitals of treating hepatitis C and cirrhosis, as well as the costs of other related disorders.

These costs do not include high cost drugs, or treatment in outpatient or other settings outside of hospital. They reflect the costs of a single episode of care under one consultant for a patient admitted to hospital. Patients admitted to hospital may have multiple episodes of care and each one of these episodes will be recorded separately.

Table: Average cost to NHS hospitals of treating hepatobiliary and pancreatic system disorders, 2014-15 (excluding high cost drugs, or treatment in outpatient or other settings outside of hospital)

Source: Reference costs, Department of Health

Notes:

1. The following HRGs are included in the table:

GC17A Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with Multiple Interventions, with CC Score 9+

GC17B Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with Multiple Interventions, with CC Score 4-8

GC17C Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with Multiple Interventions, with CC Score 0-3

GC17D Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with Single Intervention, with CC Score 9+

GC17E Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with Single Intervention, with CC Score 4-8

GC17F Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with Single Intervention, with CC Score 0-3

GC17G Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, without Interventions, with CC Score 8+

GC17H Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, without Interventions, with CC Score 5-7

GC17J Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, without Interventions, with CC Score 2-4

GC17K Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, without Interventions, with CC Score 0-1

PG71A Paediatric, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with CC Score 2+

PG71B Paediatric, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with CC Score 1

PG71C Paediatric, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with CC Score 0

2. These HRGs are common groupings of the ICD-10 codes used to count the number of finished admission episodes with a primary or secondary diagnosis of hepatitis C or cirrhosis. They also include other ICD-10 codes.
3. For each HRG or other currency in the reference cost collection, NHS hospital trusts submit a unit cost and amount of activity undertaken.