Tag: Lord Dholakia

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the proportion of individuals diagnosed with hepatitis C within prison who will commence treatment (1) within prison, and (2) upon release.

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 2016-02-24.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when the review of the Code of Practice for the Welfare of Privately Kept Non-Human Primates will commence, and what is the proposed timetable for that review.

Lord Gardiner of Kimble

The review of the Code of Practice for the Welfare of Privately Kept Non-Human Primates is expected to commence this year with a view to recommendations being made within a year.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Dholakia on 2016-02-24.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Prior of Brampton on 9 February (HL5469), of those tested, how many were subsequently diagnosed with (1) hepatitis B, (2) hepatitis C, and (3) HIV, over the same time period.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Public Health England (PHE) collects data on people in prison tested for blood-borne viruses (BBVs) via the Sentinel Surveillance Study. This system does not currently receive reports from all prisons in England where testing occurs currently 28 prisons report data. Table 1 below shows data from this system on the total number of prisoners tested positive for BBVs in the calendar years 2012-2014. Similar information from this study for the year 2015 will not be available until mid-2016. NHS England also collects data on levels of testing for BBVs in prisons via the Health & Justice Indicators of Performance. The numbers of positive tests for BBVs in these data are presented in Table 2 using currently available data. The higher number is due to the greater coverage of prisons by this dataset.

Table 1: Reported levels of positive tests for BBVs for people in prisons for calendar years 2012-14

2012	2013	2014
hepatitis B	60	51	49
hepatitis C	456	400	327
HIV	16	19	16

Source: PHE Sentinel Surveillance Study

Table 2: Reported levels of positive tests for BBVs for people in prisons from April 2015 to December 2015

April 2015 – December 2015
hepatitis B	743
hepatitis C	2164
HIV	1777

Source: NHS England