Health: Hepatitis C

Lord Patel Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is absolutely right that early diagnosis is always a good thing for this condition as it is for many others. We know who the risk groups are, and therefore the important thing is to target screening and testing at those groups. Predominantly, the at-risk groups are injecting drug users or former injecting drug users; they account for well over 80 per cent of cases of hepatitis C. Those groups are the focus of our efforts in primary and community care, and especially in prisons.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that some ethical issues might arise in the mass anonymous screening of blood samples if a treatment was available for the disease that was being screened?

[Earl Howe]

In the case of hepatitis C, treatments recommended by NICE are of course available that, if taken early enough, can dramatically affect the course of the disease. I think we are in danger of straying into legislative territory that is perhaps the occasion for a wider debate as to how, if at all, we might expand the scope of the Human Tissue Act so as to reach those cases that I think the noble Lord is referring to.