Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 8 November 2016 to Question 51807, for what reasons access to the new treatments for hepatitis C that have been approved as cost-effective by NICE has been limited to 10,011 people in 2016-17.

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.