Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to reduce the rate of TB in the 10 per cent of the population living in the most deprived areas.

Tackling tuberculosis (TB) in deprived populations is being addressed through the 10 key evidence based ‘areas for action’’ defined in the Collaborative TB Strategy for England 2015-2020, which can be accessed at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/403231/Collaborative_TB_Strategy_for_England_2015_2020_.pdf

This will be achieved by focusing on reducing diagnostic delay through awareness raising and improving accessibility of services, reducing TB among migrants through latent TB infection testing and treatment, maintaining the quality of TB treatment and care services to ensure continued high treatment completion and addressing the social factors associated with TB, including the specific needs of under-served populations. In January 2016, Public Health England published TB in under-served populations: A resource for TB control boards and their partners, a comprehensive resource for TB control boards and partners to tackle and reduce associated health inequalities. This can be accessed at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/584483/tackling_tb_in_under_served_populations.pdf