Theme: Models of Care Year: 2024
Background: NHS England (NHSE) seek to achieve elimination of Hepatitis C (HCV) by 2025. To help achieve this ambition, Gilead Sciences has created a first of kind national programme to define, drive and measure HCV elimination in incarcerated and injecting drug use populations, in partnership with the NHS, 23 liver networks, 160 drug services and 83 prisons reaching 240,000 at-risk individuals.
Description of model of care/intervention: Gilead has partnered with the providers of approximately 85% of England’s prison and drug services to increase HCV testing and treatment. As NHSE is unable to directly commission social care services funded by local councils, industry plays a key role in closing the gap between health and social care by funding dedicated non-promotional HCV elimination roles within Gilead, drug services and prisons and working with contracted partners to create and implement national strategies, develop and monitor performance, conduct national testing campaigns, deliver training, improve local care pathways and collect and share HCV activity data.
Effectiveness: This partnership has contributed to delivery of 411,500 HCV tests, 12,400 HCV treatment starts, and a consistent sector-wide approach to deliver elimination locally in individual prisons and drug services.
There have been sector-wide changes to prioritise HCV, with effective tools to support elimination. This includes systems to define and track elimination in drug services and prisons, a national forum to create micro elimination definitions, criteria, standards and toolkits, best practice sharing materials and a multi-stakeholder HCV database to track live progress to elimination for partnered services.
Conclusion and next steps: A national framework grounded in collaboration between governments, health systems, social care and industry can close gaps in health and social care provision and drive testing and treatment to support HCV elimination. Next steps include expansion to additional at-risk populations, non-partnered providers and other countries with HCV elimination ambitions.
Disclosure of Interest Statement:
These activities and roles have been developed and funded by Gilead Sciences Ltd in collaboration with representatives from Gilead-partnered DTS providers and The Hepatitis C Trust as part of the NHS England HCV Elimination Programme.