Health: Funding

Debate between Earl Howe and Baroness Randerson

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, nothing in the Government’s plans will impede the flow of Welsh patients into England. I can give the noble Lord that reassurance.

[Baroness Randerson]

The increased sensitivity to local needs which will be created by the reorganisation of the health service is to be welcomed, but in practice there will be more organisations involved which will need to co-operate. Does the Minister agree that this will need strong ministerial guidance for all affected organisations to follow if individual patients are not to suffer delays?

[Earl Howe]

I agree with my noble friend. The NHS Commissioning Board will have a duty to consider the likely impact of commissioning decisions on the provision of health services to people living close to the border with England, wherever they may be.

Abattoirs

Debate between Earl Howe and Baroness Randerson

Monday 11th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

No, my Lords, it has not been a disaster. It is sensible to look at accreditation and such devices to ensure that regulation is directed where it is most needed.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, many of the 28 abattoirs left in Wales are the small abattoirs that the Minister described in his Answer. He referred to support. What will that amount to?

Health: Hepatitis C

Debate between Earl Howe and Baroness Randerson

Monday 20th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of people infected with hepatitis C who remain undiagnosed.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, to the end of 2009, the latest year for which complete data are currently available, a cumulative total of 79,165 laboratory diagnoses of hepatitis C had been reported to the Health Protection Agency. The HPA advises that the number of laboratory diagnoses made will be higher than this because of underreporting, but the number of undiagnosed individuals is not known.

[Baroness Randerson]

The Health Protection Agency refers to a very much higher number of people—possibly 250,000—being infected with hepatitis C. That is its estimate, and there are other estimates of up to 450,000. I very much welcome my noble friend’s detailed Answer, but since 1997 the number of cases of hepatitis C reported each year has almost trebled. The majority are still undiagnosed, and I ask that in future there is more systematic and proactive screening of prisoners in prison to ensure that we diagnose more cases.

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is absolutely right that there is a range of estimates of both the incidence and the prevalence of hepatitis C. I could spend some time explaining why that is, but it is partly to do with the long incubation period of hepatitis C, the symptoms of which do not manifest themselves for many years. My noble friend is also right that prisons tend to be a repository of this condition. In recent years, the story there has been good. The provision of information for prisoners and prison staff on hepatitis C and other blood-borne viruses has increased. There has also been increased access to hepatitis C testing for prisoners. We have had improved access to treatment for prisoners with hepatitis C and to drug treatment generally, which is of course absolutely germane to this condition. I believe that the focus is there, but that there is more to do.