Tag: Lord Dholakia

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

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many individuals within the total prison estate have commenced treatment for hepatitis C in 2015–16 to date, broken down by Operational Delivery Network area; and of those, how many commenced treatment while in prison but were released from prison before completion of treatment.

Lord Prior of Brampton

People diagnosed with hepatitis C infection in prison may be treated in prison (through an ‘in-reach’ care programme) or as outpatients via specialist services in National Health Service acute trusts or via a ‘mixed model’. Data on patients treated while in prison or whose treatment is continued following release are held by specialist service providers locally within Operational Delivery Networks and are not currently available centrally.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Dholakia on 2016-03-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consultations they have had with the government of India about recommendations of the Migration Advisory Committee regarding Tier 2 visas.

Lord Bates

The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) is an independent body and its recommendations are not a statement of Government policy. We thank the MAC for their report and we are currently considering the findings carefully. We will announce our response in due course.

Doctors from overseas make a valuable contribution to the running of our NHS and we will consider the potential impacts on them in making our decisions. The Minister for Immigration met the Indian Minister of State for External Affairs and the Minister of State for Home Affairs during a visit to India in February and had wide ranging and constructive talks, including discussion of the MAC’s report on Tier 2.

The Government fully respects the UK’s international commitments and remains strongly committed to the free trade agenda. The UK immigration system continues to support inward investment and trade.