Hepatitis C

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered elimination of hepatitis C.

I should tell the House at the outset that I am not really the instigator of this opportunity to debate hepatitis. The colleague who had succeeded in securing the motion is not able to be here, but I am delighted to share my thoughts with the House.

I was a member of the Health Committee from 1998 to 2007, and during that time we certainly spent a lot of time considering hepatitis. I am also the co-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on liver health. I have been the chairman now for some 13 years—simply because I do not think anyone else wants to take on the mantle, to be frank. When we set up our all-party parliamentary group, we looked for a celebrity to head it all, as one does, and we chose George Best. The House might feel that George Best was an unlikely person to head up the charity, but at that time he was a reformed character, and he did a lot of good in those early years. Unfortunately, as we all know, a great toll was taken on his health and, sadly, he died.

We then looked for another celebrity, and—what a joy—Anita Roddick of The Body Shop, who was a wonderful and remarkable lady, became our patron. She died in 2007. The House may know that she contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion in 1971 and was unaware that she was living with the disease until 2004. A routine blood test revealed the diagnosis. She was a tireless campaigner, and we owe her a great debt of gratitude, but since 2007 we have struggled to find a patron to head up the organisation as president. If colleagues have any ideas, I know our APPG would be glad to hear from them.

The APPG recently conducted an inquiry into the elimination of hepatitis, and in March it launched a report entitled “Eliminating Hepatitis C in England”. It is my intention to refer to the report’s recommendations throughout my speech. We have an excellent Minister here, and I hope that both he and the shadow spokesperson have had sight of the report. If not, we will ensure that they get it in full; perhaps they could come back with their suggestions on how we might take the recommendations forward.

In our report, we suggest raising awareness, prevention, testing and diagnosis, care and treatment, funding and monitoring progress, so we have covered every single aspect. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to Charles Gore, the former head of the World Hepatitis Alliance, and to the secretariat of the APPG, the Hepatitis C Trust, for all their assistance. They have been wonderful in all the work they do for us, ensuring that our group is effective.

On 14 December, I visited Her Majesty’s Prison Wandsworth—not because I had been sent to prison but, ironically, to accompany the Minister who has resigned from the Government today, my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), although I do not think his resignation was the result of our visit. It was a very good visit indeed, and of course it is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan).

The visit allowed us to tour the secondary screening and healthcare facilities in the prison and to participate in a roundtable on the subject of the hep C virus and the importance of testing and of attending appointments. It was a wonderful visit; I pay tribute to the governor, and I know the Government are focused on the excellent work that is being done there. We talked to inmates and the governor, and the Ministry of Justice, NHS England, the Department of Health and Social Care and Public Health England were represented.

Perhaps the Minister and I should have compared notes, but I will say a little bit about what hepatitis C is. As I am sure that most hon. Members are aware, it is a blood-borne disease that affects the liver. It can subsequently lead to liver cirrhosis and cancer, and it has been linked to cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal pain, kidney issues and mental health problems. I see we have two practitioners present in the Chamber; they might want to contradict me if they think I have got the cause of hepatitis C wrong.

The virus is said to chronically infect some 71 million people globally. Sadly, 214,000 of them reside in the United Kingdom. That is why I welcome the United Kingdom’s decision to join 193 other states in signing the World Health Organisation’s global health sector strategy on viral hepatitis in 2016. It has the principal aim of eliminating hepatitis C as a major public health threat by 2030—and I believe that if we are serious about that, we can do it. At least one Member of the House of Lords, who regularly attends our APPGs, has the illness himself. He speaks with great passion in the other House about the challenges he faces.

I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that I also welcome the target announced by NHS England in January of eliminating hepatitis C by 2025, five years ahead of the WHO. However, many problems surround the virus and its elimination, and confusion persists over how the virus is spread. Many people do not appreciate that it is spread by blood-to-blood contact. Instead, some still believe it can be spread by sneezing, coughing, spitting or other forms of physical contact. I am advised that that is not the case and it is only blood-to-blood.

Furthermore, it is estimated that between 40% and 50% of the approximate number of people chronically infected with the virus in England do not know they have it. At the start of the debate, I pointed out that Anita Roddick did not know she had it until she was tested in 2004. Between 64,000 and 80,000 people are living in England without the knowledge that they have the virus. Even more worrying is the Polaris Observatory’s prediction that the UK is set to miss the WHO target of eliminating hepatitis C by 2030.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I welcome the efforts the Government are making to tackle this problem. I do not want to digress too much, but there is still the outstanding problem of contaminated blood. The hon. Gentleman knows that as well as I do, because we have had many debates on this in the House of Commons. Even the previous Prime Minister said he was going to do something, but nothing has really happened yet, and there have also been allegations that some of the records—for want of a better term—have disappeared somewhere. We asked for an inquiry into that in the last Parliament.