Newsletter
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April 2016
News and developments: including introduction to the newsletter and NHS
England’s CQUIN payment scheme for hepatitis C ODN lead providers
Members’ activity: including Hepatitis C Trust patient councils, the
Haemophilia Society’s campaign, Addaction’s pilot project in Bournemouth, CRI’s
name change and LJWG appointment of new Co-Chairs
News updates: including short news items, parliamentary activity and visits to
the Operational Delivery Networks
Coalition information: including an update on meetings regarding the
national improvement framework for hepatitis C services
Welcome to the first edition of the Hepatitis C Coalition’s
quarterly newsletter
This quarterly newsletter will provide a concise summary of developments in
hepatitis C, which we hope will be useful to policymakers, clinicians, charities and
other stakeholders. Updates will also be included from the Coalition’s diverse
membership, which includes patient organisations, professional bodies, clinicians,
industry and other interested parties.
Please do forward this newsletter on to anyone who might find it of interest, letting
us know so we can track our circulation. People can also sign up to receive the
newsletter by emailing [email protected]
NHS England announces CQUIN scheme for hepatitis C ODNs
NHS England has published
new technical guidance,
relating
to
performance
related payments to NHS
providers,
including
a
significant
scheme
for
Operational Delivery Networks
(ODNs) for hepatitis C.
service budget, but hepatitis
C ODNs will qualify for a
maximum
of
2.8%.
This
represents
a
significant
proportion of income, which
will
become
particularly
important given the pressure
on hospital finances.
trigger payments, summarised
in the table below.
The complexity of the proposals
means they will require careful
consideration. The treatment
levels fall short of eliminating
hepatitis C as a public health
threat and depend on patients
Most NHS providers qualify for Hep C ODNs must meet a being referred for treatment
a 2.0% additional payment variety of complex criteria to through channels not under
each year on their specialised
NHS England’s auspices.
ODNs will be eligible for payment when the combined spend across all ODNs is less than or equal to the
indicative budget. Where the budget is exceeded, eligibility is reduced on a £ by £ basis
Trigger B1
Trigger B2
Trigger B3
Trigger B4
Trigger B5
0.32%
0.32%
0.32%
0.32%
0.32%
+ £100,000
per network
MDT decisions
Cost per treatment Prioritisation of
Effectiveness in Completeness
aligned to NHS
relative to lowest
patients with
sustaining
and data quality governance
payment
England published acquisition cost
highest clinical
benefits of
in the ODN
run rate
need
treatment
registry
Newsletter
April 2016
Members’ activity and updates
All members are
welcome to submit items
for future issues of the
newsletter to the
Coalition secretariat.
The Hepatitis C Trust
has announced the
launch of patient councils
in each of the 22
Operational Delivery
Networks in England, to
represent the patient
perspective at the network
and local level.
The Haemophilia Society
has called on the Government to withdraw its proposals on
financial and other support for people affected by the
contaminated blood scandal.
The Society has published guidance on responding to the
Government’s consultation, as well as seeking legal opinions on
the proposals and meeting with the Department of Health. The
Society liaised with MPs and peers to secure parliamentary scrutiny
of the proposals and held a demonstration in Westminster on
Tuesday 12 April. It is understood that the government expects to
publish a response in the summer, after local elections and the EU
referendum.
Further information on the campaign is available at
http://www.haemophilia.org.uk/news/
Addaction pilot project on hepatitis C in Bournemouth
Healthcare commissioners, councillors, clinical and public health experts in Dorset met in April to
highlight the success of a pioneering project in Bournemouth, which has seen 52% of service users
offered a test for hepatitis C and to agree actions to make elimination of the virus achievable.
Addaction has joined forces with the Hepatitis C Trust, supported by biopharmaceutical company
AbbVie, to lead the project which has included awareness campaigns, improving needle
exchange service accessibility, and training Addaction staff in hepatitis C awareness, carrying out
blood spot testing and providing information about treatment options. Addaction has also
launched a peer-to-peer education scheme, which involves training people who have personal
experience of living with hepatitis C (HCV) to share their story with others, encouraging them to get
tested and access care where appropriate.
The introduction of new, more effective treatments to the NHS was welcomed, but concerns were
raised about the recently introduced cap on treating just 10,000 people across the UK in 2016/17.
For Bournemouth this means only 22 patients each month are able to start treatment, leaving more
than 300 on growing waiting lists.
Addaction’s Head of Improvement, Colleen Homan, said: “Elimination can happen; it’s a case of
how quickly it will happen and how many lives we can save in the meantime.”
Change, grow, live (CGL)
Crime Reduction Initiatives (CRI)
the health and social care
charity is changing its name to
Change, Grow, Live, to better reflect
the work they do to support people to move
forward and change, grow and live. The
charity’s local services, which are delivered in
communities and prisons across England and
Wales, will retain their individual names, which
will co-exist under the wider organisational
‘umbrella’ brand.
More information about CGL is available at
www.changegrowlive.org
The London Joint Working Group on
Substance use and Hepatitis C
has appointed Dr Emily Finch and Dr Suman
Verma as Co-Chairs of the group. Dr Finch is
a Consultant Addiction Psychiatrist at the
South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation
Trust and Dr Suman Verma is a Consultant
Hepatologist at the Chelsea and Westminster
Hospital. Professor Graham Foster has
stepped down from his role as Chair of the
group following his appointment as ODN lead
for NHS England.
Further information is available online.
Newsletter
April 2016
News items
Welsh liver disease delivery plan updated – following consultation, the Welsh
Government has published an updated ‘Together for Health – Liver Disease Delivery
Plan’, supported with £2.4m in funding over the next three years and including the
targeted and phased roll out of new hepatitis C drugs.
New treatments for hepatitis C available to more patients – NICE guidance for new
hepatitis C treatments came into effect for most patients at the end of February,
prompting a blog post from NHS England about treatment targets.
Details of public health budget reductions announced – A circular to local authorities
has set out public health allocations for 2016/17, confirming that funding will be
reduced by an average of 3.9 per cent per annum until 2020.
Parliamentary Activity
There has been a high level of parliamentary activity so far in 2016.
Some highlights are set out below:
 There have been 83 written questions tabled on hepatitis C
since January, a full list is available from the Coalition’s
secretariat on request
 Following the Coalition’s meeting with Dr Philippa Whitford MP,
SNP spokesperson for health in Westminster, Roger Mullin asked
an oral question to Jane Ellison, asking whether the
Government was committed to the elimination of hepatitis C
as a public health concern
 An Early Day Motion was tabled by Jim Shannon and signed by
24 MPs, which called for “the Government, NHS England and
Public Health England to work towards eliminating hepatitis C
as a major public health concern by publishing a national
improvement framework as a matter of urgency.”
Operational Delivery Networks visits
In order to increase its understanding of the Operational Delivery Networks (ODNs), the
Coalition is organising visits to hub (lead provider hospitals) and spokes (local hospitals,
drug and alcohol treatment services) to discuss how the ODNs are being implemented
on the ground.
The Coalition’s first visit was to the North Yorkshire and Humberside ODN on Tuesday 5th
April, accompanied by Liz Butcher from Public Health England’s Yorkshire and Humber
Centre. During the visit, interviews were held with Mike Walker, a Blood-Borne Viruses
nurse at the Lifeline drug and alcohol abuse services in York, and Dr Charlie Millson, lead
Hepatologist at York Teaching Hospital Foundation Trust. Further visits to Leicestershire
and Wessex ODNs have been planned for Friday 29th April and Monday 9th May
respectively and more will be scheduled in due course.
Newsletter
April 2016
Improvement Framework update
In 2014 it was agreed by statutory health
bodies that a national improvement
framework was needed to improve the
coherence of hepatitis C pathways.
Public
Health
England
stated
its
commitment to such a framework in its
2014 annual report and the Minister for
Public Health, Jane Ellison, highlighted the
framework in remarks made in March
2015.
More recently, at a meeting of the
statutory bodies and key stakeholder
organisations held on 28th February, it was
understood that NHS England and Public
Health England had abandoned the
framework, a decision strongly challenged
by the Trust and Coalition.
A meeting of the key partners is being
reconvened to hear how NHS England
and PHE intend to deliver the ambitions of
the framework in future and by what
means.
If you have any questions or comments on this newsletter or its
contents, please contact [email protected]
The Hepatitis C Coalition is a group of leading clinicians, patient
organisations and other interested parties committed to the reduction of
morbidity and mortality associated with Hepatitis C and its eventual
elimination. The Hepatitis C Coalition has fu nding from AbbVie, Gilead
Sciences and Merck Sharp & Dohme. JMC Partners currently provides the
secretariat to the Coalition.
The Coalition’s members are:
Addaction
BASL
BASL Nurse Forum
Blenheim CDP
British Liver Trust
British Society of
Gastroenterology
 British Viral Hepatitis
Group






 Crime Reduction
Initiative
 Haemophilia Society
 London Drug and
Alcohol Policy Forum
 London Joint Working
Group
 Sickle Cell Society,
South Asian Health
Foundation








St Mungo’s Broadway
The Hepatitis C Trust
TB Alert, Turning Point
UK Thalassemia
Society
St Mary’s Hospital
MSD
AbbVie
Gilead Sciences
The Department of Health, NHS England, Public Health England are observers
of the Coalition and able to attend its quarterly meetings.