Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord O’Shaughnessy on 6 January (HL4286), whether they will publish a national improvement framework for hepatitis C or a national strategy for hepatitis C.

There are currently no plans for a national improvement framework. The United Kingdom has a comprehensive surveillance system in place combining laboratory diagnoses data, risk and behaviour data, outcome data, statistical modelling and service evaluation. This enables us to monitor the care pathway, detect outbreaks, and generate burden estimates.

Prevention efforts focus on minimising harm in people who inject drugs through access to opiate substitution therapies with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance needle and syringe exchange programmes supporting these interventions. Further NICE guidance Hepatitis B and C testing: people at risk of infection has also been published to improve uptake of testing for hepatitis C in various settings. NHS England leads on treatment and continues to support National Health Service-led Operational Delivery Networks to provide NICE approved treatments for hepatitis C. Copies of the NICE guidance documents have been attached.

Public Health England supports the government’s efforts by publishing hepatitis C metrics in their report Hepatitis C in the UK 2016 report - Working towards its elimination as a major public health threat. A copy of this report is attached.