Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 29 March 2018 to Questions 134202 and 134203, on Prisoners: Hepatitis, for what reason 48 per cent of prisoners diagnosed with hepatitis C in the first quarter of 2017-18 have yet to be referred to specialist care to have their infection treated.

Data collected via the Health and Justice Indicators of Performance is used by NHS England commissioners to performance manage healthcare providers in prisons. NHS England currently does not have plans to publish this data.

Prison healthcare providers commissioned by NHS England are responsible for referring patients diagnosed with hepatitis C virus infection to specialist services for assessment and treatment.

Public Health England is supporting a research study into barriers to accessing hepatitis C virus treatment for people in prison, due to be completed in September 2018. Identified issues to date include: length of stay in a specific prison; patient choice; development of referral pathways from prisons, and ‘run rates’ imposed on Operational Delivery Networks which limited the number of people treated per year