Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will guarantee stage 2 payments to people with stage 1 hepatitis C who are co-infected with HIV from 2017-18 rather than requiring those people to apply through the special category mechanism.

Those co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C stage 1 already have higher payments than those with either only HIV or hepatitis stage 1 or stage 2 in recognition of their condition.

The Department is working with a reference group of experts on the criteria for introducing a fair and equitable appeals process for those Stage 1 registrants who consider their hepatitis C virus infection, or treatment for it, affects them in the same way that conditions suffered by Stage 2 registrants affect them. These reforms are designed to ensure those most seriously affected continue to get a high level of support.

This is to be established in time for when a new scheme administrator is in place in 2017/18.

As soon as the criteria are confirmed, the Department will publish it and will give guidance as to how the process will be made and how to apply for the increased annual payments.