HC Deb 17 June 1992 vol 209 cc605-6W
Miss Emma Nicholson

To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if she will make it her policy to continue Department of Health funding for a specialist counsellor at the Institue for Child Health for those suffering from Creutzfeld-Jakob disease;

(2) what measures she intends to take to ensure that former recipients of human growth hormone treatment will be able to obtain life assurance;

(3) whether all people who were injected with human growth hormone treatments have been contacted and made aware of the possible implications of contaminated treatment.

Mr. Yeo

In the United Kingdom and Eire 1,910 patients were treated with pituitary derived human growth hormone between 1959 and 1985 when the link with Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease—CJD—was discovered. Action taken to trace these patients has revealed that 1,777 are still alive. Of these, 1,689 are believed to be currently resident in Great Britain of whom some 1,580—over 90 per cent.—have been linked to a general practitioner's list. Efforts continue to trace the remaining patients and separate arrangements have been put in hand for tracing patients resident in Northern Ireland and Eire.

In June 1991 the Department funded a trial by the Institute of Child Health at Great Ormond Street Hospital of arrangements for notifying and counselling these patients on the risk of CJD, in consultation with their general practitioner. Regional health authorities have agreed to adopt similar procedures in notifying and counselling the remaining patients resident in their regions. The counsellors used by the regional health authorities will be trained at the Institute of Child Health.

Central funding has been extended for this purpose and to enable the Institute to continue to investigate the health and welfare needs of these patients.

By now we estimate that some 500 patients have been notified and offered counselling. We have asked for reports on the progress of the counselling programme. If these indicate that obtaining life assurance is a problem, we will consider an approach to the industry.