Lord Dholakia – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Dholakia on 2016-01-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the proportion of individuals diagnosed with hepatitis C within prison who will commence treatment (1) within prison, and (2) upon release.

Lord Prior of Brampton

NHS England collect data on the offer, uptake and outcome of testing for hepatitis C for people in prison using a system of metrics co-designed with Public Health England (PHE) called the Health & Justice Indicators of Performance (HJIPs). This dataset includes information on whether those requiring treatment were referred to specialist services but does not record details of the treatment provided.

PHE has been working with NHS England and Operational Delivery Networks (ODNs) and others on a dataset which would allow for more detailed monitoring of treatments but these have not yet been introduced. Therefore, we do not currently have any data on the number of individuals commenced on treatment for hepatitis C within a prison or other prescribed place of detention in the last 12 months. Further, we do not have data on those former prisoners commenced on treatment in the community.