Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to develop a national hepatitis C elimination strategy.

Public Health England has published hepatitis C metrics for the report ‘Hepatitis C in the UK 2016 report - Working towards its elimination as a major public health threat’. The report is available at the link below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/541317/Hepatitis_C_in_the_UK_2016_report.pdf

The United Kingdom has a comprehensive surveillance system in place combining laboratory diagnoses data, risk/behaviour data, outcome data, statistical modelling and service evaluation to monitor the cascade of care, detect outbreaks, and generate burden estimates. There is national guidance and legislation around infection control in healthcare settings including a policy for healthcare workers to prevent nosocomial transmission of blood-borne viruses. Prevention efforts in minimising harm in people who inject drugs is focused on access to opiate substitution therapies and needle syringe exchange programmes, and disinfection tablets in prisons.

NHS England continues to support National Health Service-led Operational Delivery Networks to provide National Institute for Health and Care Excellence approved treatments for hepatitis C.