10. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Hepatitis C

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:51 pm on 13 July 2022.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 5:51, 13 July 2022

(Translated)

Despite the challenges of recent years, we have several stories of success here in Wales, and these will work as catalysts to achieve our target. We've already mentioned about the opt-out tests for blood-borne viruses that were introduced in Swansea prison in 2016. By doing this, we succeeded in having micro-elimination in the prison—the first in the UK to do that. And this was featured in the report that you wrote as a committee. By now, there is a strategy in place in Berwyn prison as well, and Public Health Wales has ensured funding to be introduced in Cardiff prison. The aim is to eliminate the virus in all of the prisons in Wales in the longer term.

On top of that, there is a Follow Me support programme and it's aimed at raising awareness. And under that plan, staff from the voluntary sector, from the Hepatitis C Trust, will be working within the clinical pathway, with people who they see as challenging, to try and seek help from health services, and will be encouraging them to have IgG tests. The project is being trialled at present in Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, with awareness-raising work in homeless shelters happening in Cardiff, and further training for staff to be introduced in terms of service users.

We're fortunate that the hepatitis C clinical network is very effective and dedicated here in Wales. This leads to the saving of more than £40 million in drug treatments since anti-viral agents, which operate directly, were introduced in 2014. It's a flexible way of funding drugs and providing them to patients, and improves the patient experience, improves outcomes and helps to save costs as well. Even though we're all aware of the great work that's been done already, and that we still have to do, to meet the target of eradicating the virus by 2030, we're continuing to work with the health service here in Wales to deliver our aim jointly, and our aim is to give you a further update in the autumn. Thank you.