Hepatitis: Medical Treatments

(asked on 18th November 2016) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions his Department has had with NHS England on its decision to limit the number of people able to access new hepatitis C treatments to 10,011; and on what basis that number was chosen.


This question was answered on 28th November 2016

The guidance issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in relation to new direct acting antivirals for hepatitis C recommends that the decision to treat, and prescribing decisions, are made by multidisciplinary teams in the operational delivery networks put in place by NHS England. These prioritise treatment for people with the highest unmet clinical need.

NHS England’s commitment to treat 10,000 patients in 2016/17, increasing to 12,500 in 2017/18, is in line with NICE’s estimate of activity included in the costing tools published to support implementation of the guidance.

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