Late Stage Hepatitis C

Debate between Grahame Morris and Stephen Pound

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Pound]

I profoundly endorse my hon. Friend’s comments and I very much hope that what he refers to will be the outcome. It is a cruel irony if one presents at a hospital in search of good health, and ends up iller than when one went in. I certainly will refer to that later.

One of the highest levels of hepatitis C infection in this country is from injecting drugs. That is part of the stereotype, and it is the case that 49% of identified hepatitis C cases in England, 34% in Northern Ireland and 33% in Wales are from that source. There are significant public health risks of further transmission if hepatitis C is left untreated. This is the astonishing and terrifying aspect of hepatitis C, and if we achieve nothing else today, we can at least ventilate the issue and, I hope, bring it to the attention of a few more people in the country. Hepatitis C is one of the most sinister blood-borne diseases, in that it in effect lies dormant for 20 to 30 years in the blood. A person who lived a fairly rackety life in the 1960s may have no idea that they have been infected with hepatitis C. It may present itself 30 years later, when the symptoms of lassitude, fatigue, inexplicable tiredness lead the individual to go and see their medical practitioner; and it is a simple blood test—it does not require anything other than a spot of blood on a piece of paper—that reveals it. The sinister, long-standing, dormant nature of hepatitis C is something to which I wish to refer.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing an important debate. Does he agree that one problem that we face in tackling hepatitis C—he has outlined the scale of the problem; more than 200,000 people suffer from it—is the mixed messages coming from the Department of Health and, in particular, the information provided in an earlier debate in this Chamber by the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), who said that hepatitis C is not curable when in fact, with appropriate treatments, the cure rates are between 80% and 95%?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Pound]

I enthusiastically endorse the approach of the Welsh Assembly Government on the matter, and their efforts have been widely respected and appreciated. One of the things that I seek today is precisely such an overarching, UK-wide strategy. It is important to note that the United Kingdom is the only country in Europe that is showing an increase in liver disease. All the statistics indicate that cases of liver disease, particularly hepatitis C, will continue to increase until they peak in about 2030. It is hoped that in 2030 they will tail off, partly because if we backtrack 20 or 30 years to the turn of the century, people had a bit more knowledge and understanding. One hopes that debates such as this will extend that knowledge and information outwards.

[Grahame M. Morris]

On that point, I completely agree that we need an overarching national plan and strategy as in Wales and Scotland, but is there not an obligation on the health and wellbeing boards, as part of their joint strategic needs assessment? In my region, my constituency has the highest incidence of hepatitis C, which is often associated with high levels of poverty and deprivation, but less than half of the health and wellbeing boards in our region identify it as any sort of priority.

[Stephen Pound]

I knew my hon. Friend’s predecessor very well, and we discussed the matter at the time of my Bill on presumed consent. I entirely endorse my hon. Friend’s comments about the health issues that affect his constituency, and I will come to precisely that point later when I refer to clinical commissioning groups.

On the question of how lethal hepatitis C is, there are a range of brand new therapies, many of which are moving rapidly through the health system. Treatments such as daclatasvir and sofosbuvir provide shorter courses of orally administered treatment with fewer side effects than previous treatments. Traditionally, people with hepatitis C have tended to be given treatments such as interferon or ribavarin, which are partly injected intramuscularly and partly oral, and which have some pretty horrific side effects. I made it my business to go and speak to the practice nurse at the hospital across the river who deals with such cases and supervises the courses of treatment. I heard the rather chilling comment that the side effects of interferon included not only nausea, dizziness, sickness and fatigue but nightmares, depression and occasionally suicide.

We have moved on a great deal, and we are no longer talking about purely an interferon or ribavarin treatment. Modern treatments do not cause the awful problems of anaemia and skin reactions that the older treatments did. I give credit to companies such as Bristol-Myers Squibb and others that have undertaken groundbreaking work in the area. Treatment used to take 48 weeks, and it is incredibly difficult to work or even simply to endure while receiving the treatment. The treatment cycle for the new treatments lasts 12 to 14 weeks, which is quite incredible and much more attainable. We reckon that 10% of people who are HIV-positive also have hepatitis C, and the new course of treatment is particularly effective in those cases. Patients will almost certainly continue their course of treatment if it is shorter and less painful. I do not have time to go fully into the economic benefits of somebody being able to remain economically active while they have hepatitis C, but under the new treatments, there is absolutely no reason why a person should not continue in employment, providing a useful function and benefiting the state.

The real difficulty is late diagnosis. The benefits of early diagnosis to the NHS and to the patient are self-evident. If patients do not receive early treatment, we can see the occurrence of cirrhosis, liver cancer and even the need for transplants. If we could only address the issue of early diagnosis, it would be not only cost-effective but good for the humanity of the individual. That is one of the reasons why I am particularly pressing for early diagnosis.

I have mentioned hepatitis A, B and C, and within each of those are genotypes that have different characteristics. There tend to be four different genotypes within hepatitis C, which are known as 1, 2, 3 and 4. Genotype 1 is typically associated with intravenous drug users, and my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall referred at great length and with considerable knowledge to genotype 3 at the recent launch of the programme of treatment for the south Asian community. Bizarrely, genotype 1, which was supposed to be the hardest to treat, has turned out to be one of the easier to treat. However, genotype 3, of which the opposite was the impression, is becoming extremely hard to treat. That is one of the reasons why “The Challenge of Hepatitis C for the South Asian Community” is all the more important. One way to deal with hepatitis C is to wait until the symptoms present, but the symptoms are very difficult, because there is no typical symptom of someone who has liver disease. Most commonly, the symptoms will be things such as lassitude and fatigue, but there can be numerous other factors.

I have mentioned the hepatitis strategy in Scotland. The effect of that strategy has been to improve access to treatment from 10% to 20% through better integration among health care providers. Of course, I understand that there is a smaller population in Scotland. People often talk about the situation in the Republic of Ireland, which has a very good identification programme. The reason for that is that there is only one place in the entire Republic of Ireland where someone can get the test, which happens to be in the Dublin health district, so all the data are gathered in one place. In GB, the United Kingdom and England there are a multiplicity of areas, so it is harder to get hold of and keep such data.

That brings us to the hepatitis framework document. I am reluctant to criticise the Minister, even tangentially, because she is a good person. However, the document is a little bit overdue. I think we were promised it at the beginning of the year. I blame no one for that; the Government have other matters to deal with, and I know the Minister has been working extremely hard. I do not think anyone would disagree, however, that we are due that document.

There are a number of questions that I would like to raise as we flesh out the shape of that document. What exactly is the timetable for its presentation and implementation? Will there be targets in it? The previous documents have not contained targets. What about the role of the clinical commissioning groups? When the document was first mooted, CCGs were not the powerful agency they are now. There will be no point in having some sort of strategy if we do not address the questions of funding streams and co-commissioning. That will almost certainly happen, and we need to know where we are. We cannot revert to a situation whereby a particular area provides a particular course of treatment that is denied to someone in another area.

Who will be involved with the document? Perhaps it is an illness of politicians that we often take refuge in strategy when implementation becomes too difficult, but a working party can be a useful thing. As part of the Government’s strategy, will they consider the establishment of a working party, which might include the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, Professor Graham Foster from Queen Mary, university of London—the pre-eminent diagnostician in the area—patients’ groups and the Hepatitis C Trust? I mentioned Bristol-Myers Squibb earlier, and I have no financial or other interests in the company, but I admire people who can produce good, life-saving products and I think that such people should be involved.

We need to have a strategy. I would like to suggest that, first of all, the strategy should improve outcomes for people with hepatitis C. That may seem obvious, but let us get it down on the record. We should improve the prevention strategy. We need to tell people that if they get a tattoo in Thailand, it is not enough that the needle and the syringe are clean if the bowl of ink is not. That happens to people. I will keep my shirt and jacket on, but if I did not, Members would see a large number of tattoos up and down my arms that were mostly inflicted on me in Hong Kong in the ’60s. At that time we did not consider the sterile nature of tattoos. People nowadays should be savvier, wiser and more aware, but we need to tell them.

Above all, we need early diagnosis and prompt treatment, which will not only save lives and money but improve the health of the nation. It will improve on an individual, collective and community basis. We have an opportunity, because there is a coming together of a whole range of different streams: advances in medical science, the recognition of the scale of the problem and the possibility of a solution. We are also in a fortunate position because the Minister is extremely sympathetic to this issue.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Grahame Morris and Stephen Pound

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Grahame M. Morris]

I agree with my hon. Friend and am grateful for her intervention. Those points were exercised in a recent debate in Westminster Hall. The basic point that I seek to make—I will finish on this—is that in order to plan effective health interventions, we need an effective and reliable evidence base. I would like assurances from the Minister that the necessary funding will be in place to ensure that that is delivered as a consequence of that measure in the Bill.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

May I trespass upon your good nature, Mr Speaker, to endeavour to speak on behalf of the House to praise my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), who is not well, but who has risen from his sick bed to join us today because this subject is of such importance?

Those of us who stood at the Bar in the other place listening to the debate—[Interruption.] Not that bar. Those of us who stood at the Bar of the other place listening to the debate on the Bill cannot help but to have been massively impressed by the breadth and depth of expertise that was displayed. We had past presidents of royal colleges and consultants, and people from every aspect of our glorious national health service, giving their expertise, passion and analysis.

I come from a slightly different perspective. I spent more than 10 years working in the national health service—this is specifically in relation to the issue of health and wellbeing boards, in case you are worried, Mr Speaker—before community health councils were established in 1974, when, frankly, the NHS was not run for patients, people or the local community, and when there was little or no consultation with democratically elected local authorities, let alone with special interest groups or people representing areas that were ill served by the NHS. Community health councils had not only statutory powers, but a budget. They enabled the voice of the people to be heard in wards, corridors and A and E departments throughout the national health service.

We have heard tonight an extraordinary, agonising attempt on the part of the junior section of the coalition to justify what had been for years their principled support of a public voice within the NHS. The Liberal Democrats say that they will scrutinise the measure having voted to destroy that for which they have stood for so long. It is like somebody setting fire to a house and saying that they will time how long the fire engine takes to get there—and then criticising it. It ill becomes Members to draw attention to the shortcomings of other Members, but one speaker reminded me of those people in Spain who, on Good Friday, flagellate themselves up and down mountains trying to display their agonies. All the time, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) tries to show us that he is not enjoying this—he is in agony but that agony will not deter him, I fear, from voting against the amendments.