The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-11190, in the name of Kevin Stewart, on hepatitis C. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes that the blood-borne virus, hepatitis C, is a major cause of liver disease; understands that, in Scotland, an estimated 39,000 people, many unknowingly, are infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), including many in Aberdeen; considers that the current Scottish administration and its predecessors have done much to highlight and prevent HCV infection and improve treatment by implementing the aims of the Hepatitis C Action Plan and the Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Framework; commends organisations such as the Hepatitis C Trust and Hepatitis Scotland on their efforts in advocating for people with HCV and lobbying on their behalf; believes that new treatments may offer opportunities, and welcomes what it sees as the Scottish Government, the NHS, the third sector and pharmaceutical companies continuing to cooperate in the fight to eradicate hepatitis C.
17:39
I am pleased that Parliament has the opportunity to debate hepatitis C and I thank all the members who signed the motion to make the debate possible. I also thank the Hepatitis C Trust, Hepatitis Scotland, HIV Scotland and AbbVie for providing briefings for the debate.
Scotland has been hailed as a world leader in tackling hepatitis C; we have been really successful in tackling the virus and we must recognise the work of successive Scottish Governments of various political hues for their handling of the issue. However, we know that nearly 40,000 people in Scotland are infected with the hepatitis C virus, a blood-borne virus that can cause fatal liver damage and cancer if it is left untreated. We know that about 45 per cent of folk with hep C in Scotland remain undiagnosed and that only about 3 per cent of those with the virus receive treatment each year. We know that hepatitis C affects people from our poor communities much more than those from richer airts and pairts, with some 75 per cent of sufferers coming from the lowest two socioeconomic quintiles.
A recent Hepatitis Scotland and HIV Scotland report found that welfare changes had resulted in 58 per cent of people surveyed with hepatitis C and HIV experiencing poorer mental health, 48 per cent suffering poorer physical health, 45 per cent struggling to pay fuel bills and 39 per cent struggling to buy food. However, enough of statistics—I want to talk about real people.
I am grateful to the Hepatitis C Trust for providing me with some folk’s stories. Nigel’s story is that when he was a cameraman in Afghanistan 13 years ago he had a blood transfusion that saved his life, but during the transfusion Nigel contracted hepatitis C. He says:
“Before I was diagnosed I had no idea of the stigma which surrounds hepatitis C, but it leaves you feeling alone and fearful. I got a mixed reception from people when I told them. Some were calm and cool about it, while others were quite put out to say the least. One of the best things that happened to me was meeting someone else who told me he had it too. Suddenly I knew someone else in the same position as me and that helped.
The treatment was gruelling, although I know it affects people differently. For me it took a lot out of me both mentally and physically. I had severe depression and had terrible skin rashes, nausea and aching. I did feel quite ill at certain points, but I believe it was all worth it because I feel so much better now.”
Petra says:
“I was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1991. I believe that I contracted it in my 20s, when taking drugs, through the sharing of needles. When I was diagnosed, not much was known about the virus and so I didn’t seek any treatment. It wasn’t until 2003 that I began experiencing problems, including a lack of concentration and an inability to learn new tasks at work.
I was diagnosed with chronic hepatitis C infection in 2004 and, although my liver was not yet severely damaged, I was keen to rid my body of the virus and prevent myself from constantly worrying about infecting others. I began 24 weeks of treatment which unfortunately was not successful; something which left me shattered and depressed. I underwent a 48 week course of treatment in 2011 and, thankfully, successfully cleared the virus.
Since being cured of hepatitis C, I have dedicated myself to helping people in Scotland with the virus, through working with the Hepatitis C Trust and various patient organisations such as the National Patients Forum. I still, though, suffer the after-effects of two courses of interferon-based treatment. My hope is that, with the new treatments now becoming available, we can move away from interferon-based therapies, diagnose and treat all those in Scotland with the virus, and ensure that Scotland is the first country in the world to eliminate hepatitis C.”
Mark says:
“I find it hard to live with hepatitis C for lots of reasons ... know that my risk of getting cirrhosis, liver cancer and a list of other life-threatening conditions goes up every day - the clock is ticking. I also live with reduced energy and sometimes hit a wall where I just plain run out of gas. The brain fog is another difficult symptom of hepatitis C, with a loss of concentration, focus and memory, and a tendency towards depression and low moods. I feel a reduced ability to cope with stress, and I live with the knowledge that I could infect someone else. I’m a reservoir for a fast-mutating virus and I could hurt someone”.
Those are some people’s stories.
I said at the beginning that we have a fairly good international reputation in Scotland for dealing with hep C. In order to maintain our international reputation, the revised sexual health and blood-borne virus framework, which will be published this summer, must be as ambitious as possible, ensure access to new treatments, and explicitly commit to the elimination of the virus as a serious public health concern. To do that, we must educate and make the public aware of hepatitis C in order to reduce and eliminate newly acquired infections. We must ensure that we diagnose all those who are living with hep C and that they are treated promptly.
I believe that the World Hepatitis Alliance summit will be held in Glasgow this September. That summit offers the Scottish Government the perfect opportunity to highlight its world-leading efforts and showcase its highly ambitious plans for addressing hepatitis C that will, I hope, be contained in the revised sexual health and blood-borne virus framework.
Hepatitis C is preventable, treatable and curable. Let us ensure that we do all that we can to eradicate the virus from Scotland and export our good practice globally. I hope that we will soon see a hepatitis C-free world.
17:46
I congratulate Kevin Stewart on lodging an important motion. He was quite right to praise the current Government for the work that it has done on hepatitis C, but he also generously referred to the previous Administration, as well.
There has been a lot of continuity. At the start of the Scottish Parliament, we had the Scottish needs assessment programme—SNAP—report in 2000, which led to two action plans and to “The Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Framework 2011-2015”, of which there will be another iteration very soon. There has been continuity.
I note that the first sentence of the hepatitis C section of the framework quoted me. It is not often that I get a chance to quote myself, but I said in 2004 that
“hepatitis C is one of the most serious and significant public health risks of our generation”.
That is still true, but there has been a lot of progress since then.
One of the issues has, of course, been the development of new drugs, to which Kevin Stewart referred. I am sure that we have all, over the years, spoken to people who were having treatment and who complained about the side effects and aftereffects of interferon-based therapy. Therefore, we have to welcome the new treatments. However, there is an issue: they are extremely expensive. I know that that is an issue for Lothian NHS. Its acute medicines budget has increased by 15 per cent in the past year. I do not know what percentage of that is to do with hepatitis C, but it has significant costs. I am certainly not arguing for those drugs to be discontinued, but there may be a case for the cost of acute medicines to be taken into account more in the distribution formula for health board budgets.
Does Malcolm Chisholm agree that in health economics we do not always take fully into account the difference that a treatment will make, in that it can enable a person to go back to work and be less reliant on benefits? We should take a joined-up approach. I hope that the United Kingdom Government can help in taking a joined-up approach to dealing with serious illnesses. The cost of treatment may be minuscule compared with the economic cost of not treating people.
I will give Malcolm Chisholm his time back.
Kevin Stewart has made an important point. He also gave us statistics that are still alarming. It is not just the overall number of nearly 40,000 people with chronic hepatitis C that is a matter of concern; the fact that half of those who have it are undiagnosed is also obviously a matter of concern. We are also told that 75 per cent of those who have been diagnosed are not in specialist care.
Therefore, there are still big challenges, but as Kevin Stewart and I have emphasised, there has been great progress in prevention and diagnosis—notwithstanding the challenges around developing optimal treatments and around care and support. Those were the themes of the action plans.
There is a good emphasis in the framework on the strong health inequalities dimension and on stigma, which are two very important and relatively new priorities. With Elaine Murray sitting beside me, I am reminded of the excellent work that is being done on health inequalities in Dumfries prison through the nursing at the edge initiative, which focuses on diagnosis and treatment of people in prison who have hepatitis C.
Many people with hepatitis C contracted it through injecting drugs, which is why a lot of the prevention activity is around that, but we cannot forget the several hundred people who have contracted it from blood products. That issue was of great concern in the early years of the Parliament, and it led to ex gratia payments being made, which was started by the Scottish Parliament then copied by the UK Parliament.
We all know that the Penrose inquiry will report in March, and we must be mindful of the issues around that very complex situation. We all look forward to reading the conclusions of that report, and I believe that it will lead to demands for further payments. Constituents of mine are still contacting me about that. We must not forget that there are still a large number of people who contracted hepatitis C in that way, and we must do all that we can to meet their specific needs and circumstances.
17:51
I add my congratulations to my colleague Kevin Stewart on lodging the motion, and I certainly support the principles in it.
Hepatitis C has presented a major challenge to our health services over many years. There is no doubt that it remains a major challenge, but there is light at the end of the tunnel in terms of possible treatment.
When doing a bit of research for this evening’s debate, I was going through the endless statistics and reports and wondering where to go with this speech. Kevin Stewart gave some excellent personal examples of the problems that are faced by sufferers. As it happened, I met an acquaintance on Monday evening who I had not seen since my school days. I had not known that he is not living in Scotland any more—he lives down in England. As we carried on with our general pleasantries and talked about what we have been doing—he was quite surprised to find that I had found myself in Parliament—I happened to mention that I was taking part in this debate. He went a bit quiet on me and said that he had been diagnosed with the condition a wee bit of time ago.
We carried on the conversation, as members can imagine. He felt a bit uneasy about it, and he did not explain how or where he had contracted the virus. However, he was clearly excited by the advances in the drugs that may help in the coming years. After a time, when we were speaking in very general terms, he started to open up, explaining how difficult it had been to explain to his family how he had been infected. It was absolutely clear that there were stresses within the family when it happened. The long-term fears about how it would affect him were hitting him. What would be the effect on developing relationships in the future? Those things affect not just people who suffer from hepatitis C—they affect people who suffer from other afflictions.
My friend went through a period when his concern was replaced by anger, interspersed with periods of depression. Many sufferers seem to go thorough states of anxiety, and more. He joined a support group in the midlands in England, through which he eventually managed to get himself in some degree of order. I am thankful that he is now in a stronger state of mind than he was not long ago.
If we assume that most people who have been diagnosed go through that, we can see why groups such as Waverley Care, here in Edinburgh, are so important within our communities. Outreach work—getting out into communities, dealing with groups who are at higher risk of infection, getting people to talk and, for those who have been diagnosed, ensuring that help is available—has been vital.
Of course, that description is oversimplistic. Some people lead chaotic lifestyles and are perhaps not clear whether, or do not know that, they are suffering from hepatitis C. There is also the problem of dealing with people in the prison system and people who continue to be hooked on drugs, which brings additional pressures regarding practical difficulties with treatment.
I pay tribute to the current and previous Scottish Governments, including Malcolm Chisholm, for the work that they have done. I was delighted to hear Malcolm Chisholm’s contribution, which was as helpful as ever.
Since 2011, the Scottish Government has provided something in the region of £28.7 million each year in funding for the sexual health and blood-borne virus strategy. I believe that came out in an answer to a question from Jackson Carlaw. About £14.5 million is allocated annually to support activities on viral hepatitis.
Of course, the real shining light is a cure. The old regime of interferon-based treatment is certainly not perfect. New drugs that are now available and have been passed for use present a real possibility of ending the scourge of hepatitis C. Time will tell.
The Scottish Government’s commitment through the new drugs fund will undoubtedly make a difference in providing the drugs that are required. Kevin Stewart has raised a number of excellent points in his motion and I commend him once again for a motion that is based on a positive end for something that has caused misery to many. I support the motion.
17:55
I am pleased to have the opportunity this evening to contribute to the debate because hepatitis C is an on-going concern to many of my constituents in Glasgow. I therefore thank Kevin Stewart for securing time in the chamber to discuss it.
This year is just as important as the time 20 years ago when I first studied the implications of hepatitis C when I was working in addiction. This year will see the publication of a revised sexual health and blood-borne virus framework, the staging of the World Hepatitis Alliance summit in Glasgow in September, and the anticipated availability of a host of new treatments that promise cure rates of up to 95 per cent. This year is hugely important.
Although Scotland has made progress with the hepatitis C action plan and the inclusion of the hepatitis C virus in “The Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Framework 2011-2015”, which is internationally acclaimed, there is still more to be done. Recent treatment targets have not been met and further action is required. If such action is not taken, hepatitis C will remain a significant public health concern and will result in higher rates of liver disease and cancer at great cost to individuals and the health service.
As Kevin Stewart said, it is estimated that 45 per cent of Scottish chronic hepatitis C infections go undiagnosed. The risk of transmission is therefore high and will remain so without concerted action to test for and treat infection.
Glasgow has the highest rate of hepatitis C in Scotland, with 40 per cent of all diagnosed cases occurring in the Glasgow and greater Clyde area. I have recently been contacted by two constituents who have haemophilia and have contracted hepatitis C as a result of their having been given contaminated blood products by the national health service. The hepatitis C has left them with cirrhosis of the liver. My constituents are concerned that treatments that are currently available on the NHS are less successful than some that are available abroad, and they believe that all haemophiliacs in this country should be entitled to the most effective drugs and treatments, regardless of cost and the country in which they are administered. The Scottish Government should seek negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies on the cost of those drugs.
My constituents also state that sufferers of haemophilia are unable to secure life insurance because of their medical condition and expected shortened lifespan. They believe that the Scottish Government should take responsibility for payment of life insurance policies that would after their deaths offer stability and security to their families. I have written a letter to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Sport about each of the cases that I am dealing with and I am still awaiting her reply.
Hepatitis C is preventable, treatable and curable for the majority of patients. With new and more effective drug treatments soon to be available, hepatitis C can be eliminated from Scotland provided that there is a Scottish Government commitment to doing so and to prolonging lives, including those of my constituents.
18:00
This debate about hepatitis C is well timed, as it comes just a few months before the planned new Scottish sexual health and blood-borne virus framework. I, too, congratulate Kevin Stewart on bringing it for debate. The issue is of such importance that it merits a full parliamentary debate, so I hope that the Scottish Government will consider that as it develops its new framework in the next few months.
Hepatitis C blights the health of a significant number of people in Scotland. Many of them live in deprived communities and a high proportion of them have used, or currently use, injected drugs, are homeless or come from countries where the virus is endemic—for example, parts of Asia and eastern Europe.
It is of concern not only that nearly 40,000 people in Scotland are known to be infected by the virus, but that that is little more than half the population of people who are thought to carry it. Many have no idea that they are infected until they develop the signs and symptoms of serious liver disease.
The statistics are alarming. Only 28 per cent of chronically infected HCV patients attended a specialist treatment centre in 2013, there has been an almost 240 per cent increase in liver-related deaths in the past 15 years among people who have been diagnosed with the virus, and 21 per cent of the 98 liver transplants that were carried out in Scotland in 2013—at an average cost of £40,000 each—were due to hep C related liver damage.
It is worrying that less than 40 per cent of people who are confirmed as having the virus have had their genotype tested, which is crucial if they are to be given the most appropriate therapy for their condition, and that just 3 per cent of Scotland’s nearly 5,000 general practitioners have completed level 1 or 2 of the Royal College of General Practitioners certificate in detection, diagnosis and management of hepatitis B and C in primary care.
However, there is good news, too. Scotland is recognised as a world leader in the battle against hep C through its hep C action plan and the integration of hep C into the framework of 2011-2015, accompanied by the investment that is essential to achieving the framework’s goals. Since the hep C action plan was published in 2006, the number of annual diagnoses has increased by a quarter, more than 6,000 people have been started on treatment and 45 million pieces of clean injection equipment have been distributed.
Despite that significant progress, recent treatment targets have not been met and further action is needed. Otherwise, hep C will remain a significant public health concern, resulting in higher rates of liver disease and cancer at great cost to the NHS in Scotland.
In last week’s debate on the 2020 vision for the NHS, the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Sport said that she hopes to plan for the NHS well beyond 2020 and would welcome positive suggestions. I propose for consideration the target that the Hepatitis C Trust suggested of eliminating hep C from Scotland by 2030. It is a reasonable target, given the increasing availability of new drug treatments that have been approved by the Scottish Medicines Consortium and which are highly effective in eliminating the virus, particularly when used in combination.
My plea to the Government is for it to consider committing to a strategy for elimination of hep C that aims to reduce to zero the incidence of new cases, to raise public awareness of the virus—with particular, but not exclusive, focus on injecting drug users—to diagnose everyone who lives with hep C and to ensure that everyone who is diagnosed as being infected has prompt access to the treatments that are most appropriate for them and to full support throughout their treatment.
The SMC has already approved a number of new drugs for treatment of hep C and more are in the pipeline. I would be interested to hear from the Minister for Public Health in her response to the debate whether those new treatments will qualify for the new medicines fund that is currently in place and which I hope will be extended beyond 2016, depending on available funding and political will.
If the excellent work of recent years is built on and, as suggested in the motion, co-operation between the Scottish Government, the NHS, the third sector and pharmaceutical companies continues, I have no doubt that the elimination of hepatitis C as a serious public health concern in Scotland can be achieved in the foreseeable future.
I commend Kevin Stewart for securing time for this important debate.
18:04
As the motion refers to “pharmaceutical companies”, I declare at the outset that my niece Jo works for such a company. She lives in Sweden, but the industry is international.
The statistics are interesting. We are told that there may be up to, or approaching, 40,000 people in Scotland with chronic hep C infection. Statistically, that means that one member of Parliament will have hep C. I recognise that there is an element of social discrimination, and that we are perhaps not the most likely cohort of people to suffer from the virus. However, that statistic provides a context for, and perspective on, the spread of the disease.
We can be exposed to the disease not simply as a result of sharing needles when using drugs, but through use of blood products. Some 30-plus years ago, I was injected with gamma globulin because I was travelling to areas where there was a wide range of infections that might attack my immune system, and it was thought proper to boost it before I went. That meant that my blood-donating years came to an end about 15 years ago, and for many years I could give my blood only for plasma. So far, so good: there are no particular signs that I have that infection. However, one of the difficulties with the virus is diagnosis; it can sit dormant and undiagnosed for a very long time.
The liver is one of the more difficult organs of the human body to treat. About 30 or 40 years ago, serious conditions of the liver essentially could not be treated, and palliative care would be given. Liver rupture was often the third cause of death in car accidents, as people bled to death—the liver could be packed, but that did not do much good because it would not heal itself very effectively.
Today, we are in a different position. There is the possibility of liver transplant, and a relatively wide range of pharmacological interventions are deployed with varying degrees of success. It is a tribute to the pharmacological companies and the support that the NHS has given to people with hep C that people now recover and have the virus eliminated from their system, and are restored to good health. I hope that we see much more of that in the future.
The pancreas and the liver are two organs of the body that can cause great difficulties. We are increasingly learning how to deal with viruses; one hopes that we will go on to deal with prions, which are the cause of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. That is, of course, why I was stopped from being allowed to give blood.
I congratulate Kevin Stewart on bringing to the chamber this excellent debate, which is timely and informative. I will certainly go away having learned a great deal from the speeches of other members. I also congratulate the Hepatitis C Trust, which looks after and supports people who suffer from hep C. When people have conditions that are highly variable and relatively invisible over a long period of time, and which can also carry a degree of social stigma, they find such support to be immensely valuable. I hope that the Hepatitis C Trust continues to provide such support for many years to come, but I hope even more that we eliminate the disease and that the trust’s efforts become entirely unnecessary.
18:09
I congratulate Kevin Stewart on bringing this important debate to the chamber. I think that we all recognise the importance of debating how we properly support people who are affected by hepatitis C.
I was struck by the stories that Kevin Stewart read out and the extent to which health is not just about drugs but about how people can share experiences with others who are facing the same challenges. I hope that we make sure, in any debate that we have, that the support that is provided goes beyond simply ensuring that people have the right drugs. We also need to allow people the space to address the challenges that they face as a result of their condition, whatever it is.
It is good to see progress and to see work from the past being built on and taken forward. I do not often say this in the Parliament, but in the debate I felt a sense of optimism, particularly in Kevin Stewart’s speech, that people are pulling in the right direction and making a difference.
However, as Malcolm Chisholm and others reflected, it is inevitable that we also think about the impact of the use of contaminated blood and the consequences for those who then contracted hepatitis C and other conditions. We know how important it is to tackle the disease, but I trust that the Presiding Officer will permit me to add some thoughts specifically on contaminated blood.
One of the many helpful briefings that we received for the debate states:
“Anyone who looks dispassionately at the issue feels that the state has a moral duty to the infected.”
As someone who was elected in 1999 and was here in the first session of Parliament, I know that the issue has been politically live since the Scottish Parliament opened. A lot of time and energy has been used in addressing the challenge, but too many of those who have been affected still feel that insufficient progress has been made. All members in the chamber will know those who are still actively campaigning on the issues. The reality is that many questions and significant issues remain unresolved.
At a recent presentation in the Parliament, which I think was hosted by Richard Lyle, we had a powerful presentation by those who are campaigning on the impact of contaminated blood on people’s lives. We could be in no doubt about the degree to which anger and passion remain or about the determination to have the questions addressed.
Even more powerful was the direct meeting that I had with a constituent who wanted to talk about the impact on her and her family of losing a family member—a loved one—as a consequence of his contracting hepatitis C. He was a haemophiliac, and he was given contaminated blood as a child. I want to share my constituent’s thoughts and give voice to the desire, which is held not just by her but by others, to ensure that the really significant questions are answered.
My constituent outlined the reality of the stigma that was associated with being found to have hepatitis C, or HIV for that matter, in the 1980s and 1990s. I know that we have made huge progress, but more still has to be done. At that time, the consequence was that her loved one could not share the truth of his condition with the broader family or with friends. They could not speak to anybody else, and inevitably the pressure on them as a couple became immense. The person who was suffering was silenced and the immediate family could not share their anxieties or fears with anyone else.
It was therefore not just a physical condition, as emotional distress came with it, too, and that lived out for as long as the person lived. There was anger at not getting action but possibly also a sense of guilt about being a parent who had sanctioned the transfusion in the first place. Those are all immensely powerful consequences for people’s lives.
There is now huge hope and expectation around the Penrose inquiry. The significance of the question of compensation has been highlighted. That is absolutely right and it is understandable, but what my constituent wants more than anything is answers. She wants to know how this could have happened at all and why, even when problems were recognised, the system continued to be reckless, with consequences for many people.
Specifically in relation to the Penrose inquiry reporting, I ask the minister the following questions. How will families be briefed on the findings? What will the Scottish Government do to ensure that they know quickly what the recommendations are? What will be the timescale for implementing the recommendations? How will the compensation issues be pursued? Centrally, I hope that the minister can give an assurance that the Government will address the anger. The state must have a responsibility to those who suffered so grievously. So many people continue to live with the condition or with the pain of having lost somebody in these circumstances.
I am sure that members throughout the chamber want to see massive progress on addressing hepatitis C and, in particular, hope that the findings of Penrose will come as a comfort to those who have been campaigning for so long.
18:14
I am grateful for the opportunity to provide closing remarks in this debate. It has been an interesting discussion and I am pleased that we all recognise the importance of the issue. Many members gave case studies of people they have known who have suffered from hep C, which brought the issue to life. The personal stories bring to our attention the problems and the stark realities that are faced by people who suffer from hep C.
I will address Johann Lamont’s questions. I am not going to get into the Penrose inquiry during this members’ business debate; that is for another day. When the report is published, I am sure that it will be brought to the chamber and dealt with specifically.
This is a very significant time for hepatitis C, as many have mentioned. Nowhere else in the world can say that it is in a better position than Scotland to take advantage of recent developments. It might be useful to say a few words about what we have done in Scotland. Others have mentioned the work that was begun in the first and second sessions of Parliament and have recognised Malcolm Chisholm’s work. A lot of what we do now is down to the hepatitis C phase 2 action plan, which was launched in 2008. As a result of the action plan, we have more than doubled the number of people who commence treatment every year and have significantly improved access to testing and care services. As some people have mentioned, it needs to be a very holistic approach.
Importantly, we have also continued to invest in prevention services, including the provision of injecting equipment. That is critically important, because treatment cannot stand alone. If we are to have the best public health impact, we need to invest in prevention. We did that and, because of the investment, we have seen a reduction in the number of new hepatitis C infections in injecting drug users. We have also seen a real change in the epidemic curve and a reduction in the number of people infected in Scotland.
Those results speak for themselves, and they have done so in international scientific literature and public policy discussions. Scotland is now rightly seen as a world leader in this area. Our action plan has been described by the World Hepatitis Alliance as a “model of good practice”. Scottish leaders have presented on the action plan at the European Commission in Brussels, at the World Health Assembly in Geneva and at the White House in the United States. More recently, the Scottish Government has supported the World Health Organization in the development of its global hepatitis programme. Scotland is leading the world, and we should celebrate that.
The hepatitis C action plan came to end in 2011, but hepatitis continued to be a priority for the Government, and that was reflected in the “Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Framework 2011-2015”. All Government investment in support of hepatitis C was maintained under the new policy. The framework has been a great opportunity to bring together viral hepatitis, HIV and sexual health, and to develop a more holistic approach to prevention, treatment and care. It also maintains a strong focus on the needs of the patient—something that I will say more about—while recognising the importance of the relevant cross-cutting policies.
As others have mentioned, the framework comes to a conclusion this year. That gives us an excellent opportunity to build on the strengths of the policy over the past five years, while taking into account how the landscape has changed since 2011, how we have progressed towards delivering our outcomes and what current epidemiology tells us.
We will publish a refreshed framework later this year, and work has already commenced on that. Hepatitis C will continue to be a key priority. Indeed, I chaired a meeting of the national sexual health and blood-borne virus advisory committee just last week, at which there was a very good discussion about the future of hepatitis C policy. The discussion at that group related to the work of the treatment and therapies sub-group, which is an expert group that my predecessor established to provide advice to the Government on priorities in the light of the new therapies that are now becoming available. That group will report back to the national advisory committee in the coming months, and we will ensure that its advice is taken account of the new framework is drafted. We will take into account the fact that there are new and better drugs, and use that in where we go from here.
A key point is that the expert group includes representation from patient groups. If there is one thing that sets apart the Scottish Government’s approach from strategies elsewhere in the world, it is that we engage proactively with our patient groups. We did that throughout the development of the action plan and framework, and we are doing it now as we think about the opportunities and challenges of the new treatments. We very much take the view that we work in partnership not only with the NHS and the third sector but with patients.
The Scottish Government continues to be ambitious for Scotland. We are world leaders in the area and we are keen to remain so. Although at times that may mean making difficult decisions, we will continue to work with patients and professionals. We want now to be using the language of elimination and eradication when we talk about hepatitis C in Scotland. A few years ago, that would have been an impossibility, but it is now a realistic ambition, and I am happy to drive it forward.
Meeting closed at 18:21.Previous
Decision Time