Basic HTML Version
Local authorities are ‘not ready to take responsibility’ for
hepatitis C, according to an audit of English commission-
ers and local councils by the Hepatitis C Trust.
Despite local authorities assuming responsibility for
public health, just a quarter are aware of how many
people in their area are living with – or at risk of –
hepatitis C, says
Opportunity knocks? An audit of
hepatitis C services during the transition
, while only 20
per cent have an appointed hepatitis C lead. Fewer still
have a strategy for tackling the virus, and just 40 per
cent have arrangements in place with NHS
commissioners to coordinate hepatitis C work. Almost
half of NHS commissioners, meanwhile, have no
measures in place to increase treatment.
All local authorities need to develop a comprehensive
hepatitis C strategy, jointly agreed with commissioning
groups and taking account of local need, says the
document, as well as having a designated liver health
lead on their health and wellbeing board with hepatitis
C a clear part of their remit. The report also calls for
Public Health England to set out plans to establish a
national liver intelligence network, and for authorities to
ensure that preventative measures are targeted to all at-
risk groups in their local communities.
Around 216,000 people are thought to be infected
with the virus in the UK, while the government has still
to deliver its 15-month-overdue liver strategy, the
Hepatitis C Trust points out. ‘We face a real challenge
in ensuring that public health and NHS services are
commissioned holistically,’ said chief executive Charles
Gore. ‘2013 is a critical year for the NHS and local
authorities. With the correct action, it can also be a
turning point for hepatitis C. We could eradicate
hepatitis C in the UK in a generation. What a tragedy to
look back in 20 years and realise that we didn’t
eradicate it when we had the opportunity.’
Meanwhile the Health Protection Agency (HPA) has
confirmed that a person who injected heroin has died
from an anthrax infection in Suffolk, while NHS Greater
Glasgow and Clyde also confirmed the death of an
injecting drug user who had tested positive for
anthrax.
The deaths bring the number of UK cases in the
current outbreak to eight. Five of these have been fatal,
and there have also been non-fatal cases in Germany,
France and Denmark. ‘We have advised local agencies
to talk to their service users who inject drugs about the
risk of anthrax infection,’ said HPA consultant in
communicable disease control Dr Chris Williams.
Research published in the scientific journal
Eurosurveillance
shows that the same bacillus anthrax
strain could be responsible for all of the cases of
anthrax among European drug users dating back as far
as 2000, when a drug user in Norway became infected.
The results ‘indicate the probability of a single source
contaminating heroin and that the outbreak could
have lasted for at least a decade’, it says.
www.eurosurveillance.org
ADDICTED TO PUNISHMENT
Some non-violent drug offenders in Latin America
receive harsher penalties than murderers,
according to a new report from human rights
organisation the Washington Office on Latin
America (WOLA). Penalties for offences including
small-scale selling have ‘skyrocketed’ over the
last decades, says
Addicted to punishment: the
disproportionality of drug laws in Latin America
,
and consistently fail to ‘distinguish between the
severity’ of different crimes. ‘Not only is
disproportionate sentencing unjust, but it also
overloads prison systems and draws funds and
focus away from legitimate regional concerns,’
the document states.
Available at www.wola.org
MENTAL EFFORT
A report on steps the government needs to take
to achieve parity between mental and physical
health has been issued by the Royal College of
Psychiatrists. It highlights the ‘significant
inequalities’ between mental and physical
healthcare and lower funding rates for mental
healthcare ‘relative to the scale and impact’ of
mental health problems. The document calls on
the government to establish equivalent rates of
access for mental health services, and for public
health programmes to focus on the ‘mental
health dimension’ of issues like substance use.
‘The government says it wants to put mental
health on a par with physical health but this
report shows how much needs to be done to
make that a reality,’ said Rethink chief executive
Paul Jenkins.
Whole-person care: from rhetoric to
reality at
www.rcpsych.ac.uk
CONCERNING ISSUES
More than 500 health and NGO professionals
from 60 countries have signed a ‘statement of
concern’ about the activities of global alcohol
producers. The statement, which has been sent
to the World Health Organization’s director
general, urges that ‘unhealthy commodity
industries’ should have no role in forming public
health policies. ‘What we are witnessing is the
global alcohol producers adopting the same
tactics that the tobacco industry used for years
in their efforts to prevent public health policies
that could save lives,’ said chief executive of
Alcohol Focus Scotland Dr Evelyn Gillan.
Statement at
www.globalgapa.org
CRIMINAL GUIDANCE
A briefing paper on commissioning and provider
arrangements for healthcare services in custodial
settings has been published by the Revolving
Doors Agency. The document includes an overview
of changes as well as guidance for organisations
‘engaging with the new health commissioning
landscape’.
Supporting vulnerable people in
custody and at court at
www.revolving-doors.org.uk
April 2013 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 5
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
News |
Round-up
NEWS IN
BRIEF
Local authorities unready
for hep C responsibility
Please Mr President:
Mad Men
star Jon
Hamm is one of more than 175 American
entertainment figures, civil rights leaders,
business leaders, academics and others
who have signed an open letter to the US
administration urging it to implement more
alternatives to incarceration for non-
violent drug offences. Among the policy
recommendations are measures to reduce
the sentences of those jailed for crack-
related crimes, to make them ‘more
consistent with the magnitude of the
offence’. Offences related to crack dealing,
which has been largely confined to
America’s black community, have
historically attracted far more severe
punishments than comparable crimes
involving powder cocaine, and one in nine
black children in the US now has an
incarcerated parent, compared to one in
57 white children.
More at
globalgrind.com/endthewarondrugs