Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to his Department's document, Infected Blood: consultation on special category mechanism and financial and other support in England, published in March 2017, whether the proposals to no longer implement fixed increases in annual payments from 2018-19 will affect (a) people with HIV and stage 1 hepatitis C who were due to receive a £18,500 annual payment, (b) people with HIV and stage 2 hepatitis C who were due to receive a £36,500 annual payment, (c) people with either HIV only or stage 2 hepatitis C only who were due to receive a £18,500 annual payment and (d) people with stage 1 hepatitis C only who were due to receive a £4,500 annual payment.

The proposal for a Special Category Mechanism (with appeal), described in the consultation ‘Infected Blood: consultation on special category mechanism and financial and other support in England’ means that beneficiaries at hepatitis C stage 1, whose infection or its treatment has a substantial and long term impact on their ability to carry out daily activities, can apply to receive the higher annual payment in parity with those who suffer with more advanced hepatitis C complications or from HIV.

As a result of this new Special Category Mechanism, a significant proportion of beneficiaries with hepatitis C stage 1 would benefit from the higher annual payment. Therefore, we need to redistribute the available funding to reflect this change.

This means that for the period of this Spending Review, until 2021:

- Individuals with HIV and stage 1 hepatitis C will continue to receive annual payments of £18,500;

- Those with HIV and stage 2 hepatitis C will continue to receive £30,500 annual payments;

- People with either HIV only or stage 2 hepatitis C will continue to receive annual payments of £15,500; and

- Individuals with stage 1 hepatitis C will continue to receive annual payments of £3,500.

All of these payments are linked to the Consumer Price Index.

We believe that our proposals are fair and reasonable, and necessary in order to preserve levels of support provided to beneficiaries, including through the discretionary fund which we know is valued by beneficiaries and their families.