Tag: Lord Dholakia

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Dholakia on 2016-01-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what percentage of prisoners they plan to test for blood-borne viruses in each of the next five years, in the light of the introduction of opt-out testing in prisons.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Public Health England (PHE) working in partnership with NHS England and the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) have been implementing opt-out testing for blood-borne viruses (BBVs) since 2013/14 through a phased implementation programme using ‘pathfinder prisons’ with plans for the programme to be available in every adult prison in England by the end of financial year 2016/17. All consenting eligible adult prisoners will be offered the opportunity to test.

Prisoners eligible for testing include those not known to be infected with BBVs who have not been tested recently and/or who had risk behaviour since their last test. Therefore over the next five years and beyond, we plan to offer tests for BBVs to all adult prisoners who fall into these categories. Phased implementation of the BBV opt-out testing programme in prisons has been informed by evaluation of pathfinder prisons. Preliminary data from suggests a near doubling of BBV testing following the introduction of the opt-out testing policy. Offer, uptake and outcome of testing is being collected by both the Health & Justice Indicators of Performance at prison level as well as through PHE’s sentinel surveillance study.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Dholakia on 2016-01-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many individuals have commenced interferon-free treatment for hepatitis C within a prison or secure institution in the last 12 months.

Lord Prior of Brampton

NHS England collect data on the offer, uptake and outcome of testing for hepatitis C for people in prison using a system of metrics co-designed with Public Health England (PHE) called the Health & Justice Indicators of Performance (HJIPs). This dataset includes information on whether those requiring treatment were referred to specialist services but does not record details of the treatment provided.

PHE has been working with NHS England and Operational Delivery Networks (ODNs) and others on a dataset which would allow for more detailed monitoring of treatments but these have not yet been introduced. Therefore, we do not currently have any data on the number of individuals commenced on treatment for hepatitis C within a prison or other prescribed place of detention in the last 12 months. Further, we do not have data on those former prisoners commenced on treatment in the community.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Dholakia on 2016-01-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether new Operational Delivery Networks established to manage the treatment of hepatitis C have a duty to ensure equity of access to treatment for prisoners within their catchment area.

Lord Prior of Brampton

NHS England has published the service specification for Operational Delivery Networks (ODNs). The specification directs that ODNs include organisations and providers engaging with populations known to have a high prevalence of infection, such as prisoners, with the view to developing services designed to meet their specific needs. Further, the specification directs that specialist service providers will accept inward referrals of patients for treatment from prisons and other prescribed places of detention. NHS England has worked with each of the ODNs to map every prison to the relevant network and ensure that people in prison are being supported to access treatment.