Tuberculosis

(asked on 18th February 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what level of uptake has been achieved by the new entrant latent TB testing and treatment programme; b) what plans have been put in place to (a) increase uptake, (b) reduce variance between local authority areas and (c) share best practice and whether the programme is on target to accrue the savings to the public purse described in the Collaborative TB Strategy for England.


Answered by
Steve Brine Portrait
Steve Brine
This question was answered on 21st February 2019

Test uptake among the eligible invited population in 2017 ranged between 19.4% and 82.4% depending on clinical commissioning group (CCG) area.

In 2017, 27 CCGs reported treatment data; for the 1,364 people who tested positive for latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) in these areas, 60.3% accessed treatment. Overall treatment completion among this group stood at 71.0% in 2017.

NHS England has invited CCGs with high incidence of tuberculosis (TB) to submit plans on how they will locally increase uptake of testing and treatment for LTBI, with the ability to access NHS England funding to support implementation of their plans. £35 million has been made available to support this work over the past four years. NHS England supports CCGs to develop local plans for increasing uptake of LTBI testing, including sharing best practice. This contributes to reducing variation between local authority areas.

Modelling undertaken as part of the five-year TB strategy indicated that return on investment should begin to be recovered from year five onwards, with net savings at year 10 and beyond.

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