The World Health Organisation (WHO) published this policy brief in April 2019 to set out the current landscape of country hepatitis policies for harm reduction and hepatitis C testing and treatment for people who inject drugs and people in prisons.
It aims to capture how governments are translating the WHO Global health sector strategy on viral hepatitis 2016-2021, which the UK Government has signed up to, in national plans. It also provides a summary of the enablers and barriers to hepatitis C testing and treatment in these populations.
Hepatitis C: Out of control. An audit of Strategic Health Authority hepatitis c governance
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In 2004 the Department of Health published the Hepatitis C Action Plan for England, which set out actions on surveillance, research, increasing awareness and prevention and improving service quality for patients. However, there is concern, most recently expressed by the All Party Parliamentary Hepatology Group in its report, Divided Nations: Tackling the hepatitis C challenge across the UK, that there is a lack of implementation of the Action Plan because of poor governance arrangements, monitoring and evaluation1.
This audit of Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) shows that 70% of SHAs are failing to oversee the implementation of the Action Plan, despite the fact that responsibility for oversight is placed with them in the Action Plan. Some are not aware of any local arrangements in place to deliver the Plan. Furthermore, there is absolutely no mechanism for checking that SHAs have been performing their oversight role.
