(12 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberThe 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?
(13 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberMy 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?
(13 years, 2 months ago)
Lords Chamber
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of people infected with hepatitis C who remain undiagnosed.
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.
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.
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.